After being included in Commonwealth Games, cricket now anticipated to be part of the Olympics, its addition to the shortlisted sports will be looked upon by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for addition to the 2028 Los Angeles Games.
The organising committee of the 2028 Los Angeles Games asked the International Cricket Council (ICC) about their say on the matter. While it is expected that the matter will be finalised in the second half of 2023 as the IOC is scheduled to hold a meeting in Mumbai. The inclusion of women’s cricket to the 2022 Commonwealth Games can be attributed to the ICC and England and Wales Cricket.
According to the International Cricket Council cricket is indeed in a great position to be part of the Olympics. The ICC CEO Geoff Allardice said that cricket has been “a star attraction” at the 2022 Commonwealth Games.
“We’ve seen from the Commonwealth Games how much the world’s best players have enjoyed playing in front of big crowds and what I’m sure will be large TV audiences,” Allardice said while being interviewed by ESPNcricinfo.
Although this time it was women’s cricket that made it to the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, but at the Olympics a sport needs to feature both male and female athletes. The ICC is quite confident that cricket has enough global reach to be included in the multi-sport event.
