The International Cricket Committee has confirmed that it will campaign for the inclusion of the sport at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, launching their effort in traditional cricket fashion with the formation of a committee, the ICC Olympic Working Group.
“Our sport is united behind this bid, and we see the Olympics as a part of cricket’s long-term future,” the ICC chairman, Greg Barclay, said. “We know it won’t be easy to secure our inclusion as there are so many other great sports out there wanting to do the same, but we feel now is the time to put our best foot forward and show what a great partnership cricket and the Olympics are.”
The ICC’s bid to end what will by then have been a 128-year absence from Olympic schedules will include multiple demonstrations of cricket’s suitability for multi-sport events: it will return to the Commonwealth Games schedule with a women’s Twenty20 competition in Birmingham in 2022, to the Asian Games in Hangzhou, China the following month, and there are plans for it to be included in the 2023 Africa Games in Ghana.
The England and Wales Cricket Board’s chairman, Ian Watmore – who will also chair the ICC’s Olympic Working Group – has previously promised that the ECB will “enthusiastically support” efforts to add cricket to the Olympics, while India’s BCCI gave their approval at their AGM last December. Cricket Australia are also supportive, having already promised to “work closely with the Queensland Olympic Council to ensure cricket is front of mind” when the hosts come to propose new sports for the 2032 Games in Brisbane. Cricket West Indies will also back the bid, even though the 10 sovereign states that feed into their team would have to compete individually.
IOC regulations stipulate that the lineup of sports must in ordinary circumstances be decided “not later than three years before the opening of the Olympic Games”, and there will be several years of campaigning before a decision is made. Other sports known to be keen to be involved in Los Angeles include lacrosse, which has been out of the schedule since 1908, flag football – a non-contact version of American football – and mixed martial arts. Baseball and softball, which were both on the Tokyo Olympic schedule but have been dropped for Paris in 2024, are expected to return, while lawn bowls, squash and netball are lobbying for inclusion in 2032.
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On the only occasion that cricket featured on the Olympic timetable, in 1900, Great Britain – actually a repackaged Devon and Somerset Wanderers CC – took the title by comfortably beating the only other side in the competition, a French team largely made up of expat Britons, at the Vélodrome de Vincennes in Paris. Chasing 185 to win in their second innings, France were bowled out for just 26. Cricket was also scheduled to be a part of the 1904 Games in St Louis – along with a competition for throwing a cricket ball, a popular athletic discipline in cricket-playing nations at the time – only for it to be dropped because of a lack of facilities and interest.
The ICC has formed an Olympic working group chaired by Watmore. It also includes former PepsiCo Inc CEO Indra Nooyi and the USA Cricket chief, Paraag Marathe.
“With so many passionate cricket fans and players already in the USA, and a huge global audience and following for the sport around the world, we believe that cricket’s inclusion will add great value to the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games,” Marathe said.