Cricket in the Olympics

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Cricket’s one and only Olympic appearance was during the 1900 Paris Games, with the final taking place between Great Britain and France, with the British team coming out as eventual Gold Medal winners.

Although there have been some campaigns to get the sport reinstated back in the Olympics, due to the format and length of the One Day game cricket did not lend itself to fit into the tight calendar constraints of the Olympic programme.

[edit] Possibility of Re-Entering the Olympics

However, with the development of Twenty20 Cricket the possibility of Cricket rejoining the Olympics is becoming more likely. Following the success of the Twenty20 World Cup in South Africa and the International Olympic Committee provisionally recognising the sport, support to reinstate Cricket back into the Olympics programme is growing. Murad Qureshi, an Assembly Member at the Greater London Authority is spearheading the campaign, trying to get the organisers of London 2012 to include a Twenty20 version of the games included as a demonstration sport. He has stated that “It [Cricket in the Olympics] will draw in a large south Asian TV audience - and with more than 120 cricket-playing nations recognised by ICC, it will have a truly global appeal."[1]

In an odd coincidence, even if featured as a demonstration sport it would take until at least the year 2020[2] for Twenty20 Cricket to feature as a full Olympic sport, and with the Cricketing Super Power of India positioning itself to bid for the Games, the future of Cricket entering the Games is promising.