LONDON: 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.

Twenty-eight sports are already confirmed on the schedule but cricket was one of five new sports alongside flag football, lacrosse, squash and baseball-softball formally proposed for inclusion by organisers for the Games on Monday.

The International Cricket Council’s proposal is for men’s and women’s Twenty20 competitions — the shortest form of the international game.

“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 it makes the cut, it would be the first time cricket has featured since 1900, when a team from Britain beat a side representing France in Paris.

Since then it has been in the Olympic wilderness, in part because cricket itself was quite happy to stand aside from the Games.

But in recent years the ICC has made clear it wants to be part of the global showpiece — a move that could turbo-charge the sport and help it exploit 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.

Late ICC president Jacques Rogge said in 2011: “We would welcome an application. It [cricket] is an important, popular sport and very powerful on television.”

The current president, Thomas Bach, has also backed the inclusion of cricket, which featured at last year’s Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.

This week the IOC executive board is meeting in Mumbai, ahead of a full IOC session from October 15 to October 17, which would effectively rubberstamp the decision.

Cricket could not have asked for a better city in which to make its case.

The IOC session is being held in one of the hotbeds of the sport as India hosts the men’s 50-over World Cup.

Cricket, with its multiple formats and quirky rules, has long been a source of curiosity in areas of the world where it is not played.

But the global language of cold, hard cash is easier to understand.

The arguments that Olympic cricket would clash with the English season or that the game takes too long look increasingly outdated.

The global calendar is now a mishmash of international cricket, domestic cricket and franchise cricket, with multiple formats jostling for attention.

The wildly popular T20 Indian Premier League, which has spawned several other franchise competitions worldwide, means traditional five-day Test cricket, long regarded as the pinnacle of the game, no longer holds sway.

The IPL, featuring global superstars, has helped India become the unquestioned economic driving force of cricket, thanks to legions of fans and lucrative broadcasting deals in a nation where the game is almost a religion.

Adding cricket to the Olym­pic programme is an obvious move, financially speaking.

It would tap into the lucrative south Asian market, attracting fans in countries such as India and Pakistan that have not traditionally been strong in the core Olympic sports.

It would also potentially help cricket access millions of dollars of public and corporate funding currently reserved for Games sports.

That would benefit emerging cricket nations but could also help cash-strapped established countries such as South Africa.

OLYMPIC DEBUT

Unlike cricket, flag football — a non-contact version of American football — squash and lacrosse would make their Olympic debut, if approved.

“We are one huge step closer to a monumental milestone for our sport and international community,” said World Lacrosse, the sport’s governing body, in a statement. “We are on a path of ascendancy, and will be a great partner for LA28 and the IOC.”

The National Football League, which governs American football, backed the flag football bid.

The NFL’s version of flag football involves five players per side, on a smaller pitch and contact is not allowed — in place of tackling, players need to pull a flag off the person carrying the ball.

American football has never featured in the Olympic Games as a medal event although was included on a ‘demonstration’ basis in 1904 and 1932, when the Olympics were held in St. Louis and Los Angeles respectively.

NFL officials have backed the inclusion of players from their league taking part in the Olympics, raising the prospect of a grid-iron “dream team”.

“The league would be supportive of NFL players participating in an LA 2028 games,” Peter O’Reilly, NFL Executive Vice President, Club Business, Major Events and Inter­national said earlier this year. “The timing works in July, prior to the start of training camp so that opportunity could exist.”

The sport of squash, which has mounted a long campaign to be included in the Olympics and lost out to breakdancing for the 2024 Paris Games, was also celebrating being recommended for 2028.

Its governing body World Squash said in a statement: “The decision is a significant and exciting milestone in squash’s history as the sport nears inclusion in the Olympic Games for the first time.”

Baseball was featured in several previous Games. It was added to the 2020 Tokyo program after being left off in 2012 and 2016, but it will not be a part of the Paris Games. Softball, the female counterpart to baseball, has appeared at five previous editions of the Summer Games and was also left off the Paris agenda.

Published in Dawn, October 11th, 2023