2021 happens to be the year the world witnessed another historic edition of the Olympics. With hundreds of athletes competing across dozens of events, representing almost every country in the world, the absence of cricket inevitably becomes a topic of discussion.
Although not well distributed around the world, cricket is still the second most popular sport in the world and its fans are eagerly waiting for its return to the Olympics.
Cricket was expected to make its first appearance in the 1896 Athens summer Olympics. Due to insufficient participation, it had to wait until Paris Olympics in 1900. Only two teams participated at the time, in what was a two-day format. The match was given no first-class status. And cricket hasn't been seen in the Olympics since.
There has been some buzz about a possible reintroduction. Even as recently as August 10 of this year, ICC made an official announcement of pushing T20 as the format for the Los Angeles 2028 itinerary.
However, most fans would be sceptical about this. Such buzz circulates during every Olympics, which eventually results in nothing. As great a game as it is, cricket isn’t the most convenient sport to sneak into an already packed itinerary.
Unlike Paris 1900, numerous teams will be willing to participate and with even the shortest internationally recognised format being three and a half hours long on average, scheduling will be a massive concern.
Add to that the fact that cricket stadiums are difficult to build and maintain. Sydney 2000 and London 2012 were thus the best opportunities to not end up getting utilised. With time, international schedules (at least for full member nations) have also gotten more and more packed, making a month-long gap for all teams nearly impossible to find.
Having stated the difficulties and hindrances, the positive impacts of adding cricket to the Olympics are far greater. Globalising cricket has always been a challenge and the major ICC tournaments haven’t helped much in that regard.
ICC has also been questioned for having a discrete bias towards the better performing teams, as they already provide enormous revenue and an inherent unwillingness to fund nations where return or revenue isn’t guaranteed.
The Olympics could be the perfect solution to these problems. Countries like China and the USA have shown minor interest in cricket, but having it in the Olympics will provide an unprecedented incentive.
The sport will then also be broadcasted to countries where it never was before, thus allowing many more people to find out about its intriguing facets. More importantly, ICC will be reporting directly to the International Olympic Committee.
Having a supervising governing body would help dismiss any doubt regarding the possibility of some sort of underlying bias or manipulation. The busy schedules can also be an easy problem to workaround. Similar to football, the stronger teams, with busier schedules, can send a second-string team. That allows them to test their bench strength and creates an ideal level playing field for the associate nations.
While this might just be another year of false promise and hope, cricket and the Olympics do make an unexpectedly good match. Only time will tell if a successful reintroduction does happen.
