Cricket’s long Olympic exile could finally come to an end this week when Games chiefs meet in Mumbai to finalise the programme for Los Angeles 2028.
Cricket was one of five new sports that organizers for the Games publicly proposed for inclusion on Monday. Twenty-eight sports are already confirmed on the calendar.
The smallest format of international cricket, the Twenty20 format, is what the International Cricket Council is proposing.
“We are delighted that LA28 have recommended cricket for inclusion in the Olympics,” ICC chairman Greg Barclay said.
“Whilst this is not the final decision, it is a very significant landmark towards seeing cricket at the Olympics for the first time in more than a century.”
If cricket is chosen, it would be the first time it has been included since 1900, when a British squad defeated a French side in Paris.
Since then, it has been isolated from the Olympic festivities, in part because cricket itself was content to ignore the competition.
However, the ICC has made it plain recently that it wants to take part in the world championship, which may give the sport a boost and enable it to tap into new markets.
“Our sport is united behind this bid, and we see the Olympics as a part of cricket’s long-term future,” Barclay said in 2021.
“We have more than a billion fans globally and almost 90 percent of them want to see cricket at the Olympics.”
The game has had support from the highest places in the Olympic movement.
In 2011, the late Jacques Rogge, the head of the ICC, said: “We would welcome such application. Cricket is a significant, well-liked sport with strong television appeal.
The addition of cricket, which was a competition at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham last year, has also received support from the current president, Thomas Bach.
