Sports Desk: The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has “accepted” the recommendation to include T20 cricket (for both men and women) at the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Olympics. The IOC took the decision on Friday at its executive board meeting in Mumbai. The next step will be for the IOC to vote at its Session, which will take place in Mumbai from October 14 to 16.
The LA28 local organising committee recommended the “potential inclusion” of five new sports – cricket, baseball/softball, flag football, lacrosse and squash – as part of the Los Angeles Games. And speaking at a media briefing on Friday, IOC president Thomas Bach said all five sports were “in line” with the general ethos of LA28.
“These proposals have been accepted as a package by the IOC executive board taking into consideration that these proposals and these sports are fully in line with the sports culture of our host in ’28, with the American sports culture,” Bach said. “All these proposals will now go to the IOC Session here in Mumbai for a vote.
“These sports will showcase iconic American sports to the world while bringing at the same time international sports to the United States. The inclusion will allow the Olympics to engage with new athletes and fan communities in the US and globally.”
While the ICC has been ambitious about getting cricket to feature at the Olympics, in line with its goal of making it a global sport, the needle moved decisively only in 2019. First, cricket returned to the Commonwealth Games in 2022, when women’s T20s were played at Edgbaston in Birmingham with eight teams competing over eight days.
Simultaneously, the BCCI agreed to come under the ambit of India’s National Anti-Doping Agency, an affiliate of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), after years of resisting the move. For a long time, the resistance of boards like BCCI had put the ICC’s Olympic dream in jeopardy because the IOC mandates that every global sport body must be WADA compliant.
On Friday, Bach said in his opening remarks that the IOC had been satisfied with the “robust” anti-doping programme of all the five new sports, including cricket. Bach pointed out that cricket’s appeal has been strong and growing globally, and that fact was not lost on the IOC – and the LA28 organisers – despite the game never really growing strong roots in the USA.
He also highlighted India’s performance at the Hangzhou Asian Games recently, where the country secured 100-plus medals for the first time. Bach said that India ranked second on the IOC’s social-media handles, which underscored the “interest of the young generation” in the Olympics.