Not an April Fools?

Cricket for 2024 Olympics?

PTG Editor.

Media reports.

Friday, 31 March 2017.

PTG 2091-10592.

David Richardson, the chief executive of the International Cricket Council (ICC), says his organisation may submit an application to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for the game to be included in the 2024 Olympics.  Cricket has only previously featured once in a Games, that held in Paris in 1900 (PTG 1998-10089, 8 December 2016).

Richardson said on Thursday: "We need to make a decision by, I guess, July of this year so that we can submit an application by September.  [But] of course it's not what cricket wants, it's whether the IOC wants us”.  He indicated any approach to the Olympics movement would be for the Twenty20 format.  The IOC will choose between 2024 bid cities Paris and Los Angeles at a meeting in Lima in September, with new sports also under consideration. 

Richardson said it did not matter which city won the bid. "Both [cities] would ... probably be opportunistic for us, especially the US option, but also in Europe.  You'd have to spend a little bit more money on cricket pitches in France than in the US but it's not impossible.  I think the majority of [ICC] members, and certainly myself, think the time is right”.

"The IOC had already made clear that there were limitations on athlete numbers, which would mean a competition of six to eight national sides at elite level.  There have been concerns that Olympic inclusion could damage the sport's own events, while clearing the calendar at a busy time of the cricket year would be another headache.The problems that golf suffered, with many top players not attending, could also count against cricket.  Golf returned to the Games last year in Rio for the first time since 1904.