CHENNAI: When the United States of America hosted its first-ever summer Olympics in 1904 at St. Louis, Missouri, cricket — which was initially included in the schedule having made its debut four years ago in the Paris Games — was left off the list of events.
122 years on, as the USA gears up to host its ninth summer Olympics in Los Angeles come 2028, the discussion around getting cricket included in the event has once again kicked up, and is growing only stronger.
Especially, after the success of the women’s cricket’s inclusion in the recently concluded Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.
While the International Cricket Council has been vocal about making it happen at least for the last couple of years, the recent events only add to it.
"We have declared our ambition to be involved in the Olympic Games,” ICC CEO Geoff Allardice said after the annual ICC AGM in Birmingham recently.
“We are assisting the LA 2028 organisers and providing any information will help their assessment of different sports with regards to addition to the Olympic programme. But, at this stage, a decision is due next year," he added.
The biggest takeaway from the CWG is the attendance in the final between India and Australia where 17,000 fans filled up the Edgbaston stadium, recording the highest attendance for a neutral women’s international match in England.
Although the numbers are record-breaking, it is not a big surprise. For starters, it happened in a major cricket-playing nation.
Second, the final featured India, a cricket fanatic country with a huge diaspora across the globe. The last time that happened, 86,174 came to the Melbourne Cricket Ground for the 2020 T20 World Cup final in Australia. And, the Birmingham Games saw a few other CWG nations participate in the qualifiers with only eight countries making it to the final event.
The summer Olympics with the USA as host would be a different territory. Cricket is not the most popular sport in the country. The USA Cricket are trying to build a profile for themselves in the sport. Their men’s and women’s teams are regularly taking part in the T20 World Cup qualifiers, but haven’t made it to the main event so far.
Meanwhile, there is a world-class cricket stadium and high-performance centre coming up at Grand Prairie, Texas, which is scheduled to be opened next year.
As far as Los Angeles is concerned, the Dodger Stadium, home of baseball team Los Angeles Dodgers, last hosted the Cricket All-Stars series in 2015.
It saw the biggest erstwhile superstars of the sport like Sachin Tendulkar, Shane Warne, Brian Lara and others go up against each other in three exhibition games.
Despite the challenges, for cricket to wear off its colonial identity and truly become a global sport, its inclusion in Olympics is crucial.
ICC’s biggest move towards that came in 2018 when it recognised all T20 matches of all countries as internationals and hosted a standalone Women’s T20 World Cup.
Up until that point, it was clubbed with the men’s events. In the three T20 global events that have happened since, the audience and competitiveness have only grown, albeit Australia winning all three.
The market for the women’s sport has grown leaps and bounds in the last few years and it could only be a matter of time before all administrating bodies make their best effort to invest in it.
With the way the players, who are essentially the ambassadors of the sport more than anyone else, have embraced and reacted towards the success of the event in CWG, ICC’s keen interest to ensure it’s inclusion in olympics comes as no surprise.
"We heard from a number of the (women's team) captains at a panel session, and they are very excited and I'm sure, cricket a star attraction at the Commonwealth Games, which can only leave us in a good position as we look for ambitions moving forward in all other types of multi-sport games," Allardice said.
At this point, it is not clear whether the 2026 CWG will have just the women’s event or also the men’s. Or whether the 2028 Olympics will include cricket.
Irrespective of everything, the success of cricket at CWG is a big positive step towards making cricket a global sport.