MCC call for T20 at 2024 Olympic Games

Organisation wants cricket to be included in mega event’s programme.

LONDON: MCC’s world cricket committee has said it would like to see Twenty20 cricket included at the 2024 Olympic Games to boost the profile of the game around the world.

Cricket is on the first rung of the ladder for inclusion at a future Games, having received full Olympic recognition in 2010, but would still have to apply to be on the programme.

Now the earliest the International Cricket Council (ICC) can apply for the sport to feature at an Olympic Games is 2024. But following a two-day meeting in Auckland, the MCC world cricket committee said that any financial losses the game might suffer from the sport being included at an Olympics would be outweighed by extra exposure.

“The MCC world cricket committee appreciates that a great deal of effort may be needed to lobby for the inclusion of cricket in the Olympic Games of 2024,” it said in a statement. “The committee accepts that, were cricket to be played in the Olympics, there would be a short-term loss in income for the ICC, and therefore for dispersion to its members, but is impressed with the potential boost for the game worldwide if cricket were to be included.

International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge has previously encouraged cricket to make its case for Games inclusion, saying in 2011: “We would welcome an application.

“It’s an important sport. It’s a sport with a great tradition where mostly you have a respect of the ethics.”

Only once before has cricket appeared in the Games — at the 1900 Paris Olympics, when Britain beat France by 158 runs.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 28^th, 2013.