International Cricket Council chief executive Dave Richardson on Thursday confirmed that a majority of the body’s members were keen on applying to the International Olympic Committee for cricket to be included in the 2024 Olympic Games, ESPNCricinfo reported.
“We need to make a decision by July so we can make an application in time for September, when, as I understand it, the IOC will consider new sports for 2024,” Richardson was quoted as saying. “I think the majority of the members – and certainly myself – think the time is right and we’ve come to the conclusion that the overall benefit to the game in terms of globalising and growing it outweigh any negatives, so I’m hoping.”
Speaking at the SportPro conference in London, Richardson said a tournament between six and eight team played in the Twenty20 format is most likely to be presented for the Olympics.
Cricket last appeared at the 1900 Paris Olympics with only two teams – Great Britain and France – participating.
Richardson feels the time is right for cricket to be included in the competition, and confirmed that ICC will, in all probability, submit an application for the 2024 Olympics this year.
Richardson added that the move will help expand the sport whether the Games are held in Los Angeles or Paris.
“T20 is the ideal format and we’d say even better than rugby sevens as it’s actually one of the mainstream formats of cricket,” he said. “Neither LA nor Paris would be a disaster for us, in fact both would be opportunistic, especially the US option.”
The move though could face hurdles as the IOC has asked the ICC to assure the presence of the best players to the Games. Richardson stated that the stipulation could raise problems with England and Wales Cricket Board given that the Olympics are usually held at a time when Test matches are played in England.
“They haven’t said a sport would have to go [to make way for us],” Richardson added, “but they said when taking any decision on new sport they’ve put an overall limit on the number of athletes, so as a team sport we would only fit six to eight teams. They’ve also told us we mustn’t send beach cricket or six-a-side teams, it must be a format played at international level and it must be our top players.
“From an ICC perspective, the fixture calendar is the most challenging part of it. In the northern hemisphere, the Olympics are held in the English summer, so that’s a problem for them if they’ve got an Ashes series on. So there will be issues and England in the past have said: ‘Are we sure we want to go down this route?’ ”
Richardson was also confident of the formation of a combined Great Britain team and the West Indies being split into their individual countries.
“I don’t think it would be a problem,” he said. “The countries that make up the West Indies haven’t raised that as an issue, similarly England. I don’t think they’d mind putting a few Scots or Irish in. So I don’t think that’s an issue and I’m not sure Barbados or Jamaica would qualify, although we’d make sure there is an all-encompassing qualifying structure, as that’s one of the IOC’s requirements. So we’d start off with regional tournaments, with regional finals and so on.”
