Asian Games success will increase cricket’s hopes for 2028 Los Angeles Olympics

Cricket’s journey within the Asian Games has seen notable adjustments over the previous decade. In 2010, Bangladesh gained the inaugural event, and Sri Lanka claimed victory in 2014, with Afghanistan ending because the runner-up and India remaining absent each instances.

However, latest years have introduced a shift in notion. The International Cricket Council (ICC) and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) are displaying curiosity in multi-sport occasions just like the Commonwealth Games and Asian Games. India’s ladies’s cricket group gained silver on the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, and now each males’s and girls’s groups are set to compete within the Asian Games, aligning with the ICC’s objective of Olympic inclusion in 2028.

While cricket’s destiny within the Olympics rests with the International Olympic Committee, the ICC is actively advocating for it. They emphasise the huge cricket fan base, significantly in South Asia and the USA. The potential for elevated media rights revenue is a major incentive.

The ICC’s efforts embrace forming an Olympic Working Group and proposing T20 cricket as the best format for the Olympics.

While the IOC is predicted to succeed in a conclusion throughout its session in Mumbai in October, India’s participation within the Asian Games is being labelled as a step in the best path.

“Since the ICC is keeping India as a benchmark, the BCCI’s decision to field a strong women’s team and an equally competent men’s team is an indication that India has also warmed up to the idea of including the sport in the multi-sport events,” says a former ICC board member, including: “T20 cricket has changed the dynamics of cricket over the last one-and-a-half decade, and it’s only apt that this format has been preferred by the ICC for the Olympics bid.”

Historically, cricket’s Olympic inclusion has confronted challenges as a consequence of amenities and scheduling. Still, the Asian Games function a vital platform for India’s males’s group, marking its multi-discipline occasion return since 1998. Ruturaj Gaikwad has been named captain for the Asian Games T20 competitors. Yashasvi Jaiswal, Tilak Varma, Rinku Singh, and Jitesh Sharma additionally function within the 15-member squad.

With the boys’s ODI World Cup scheduled to start in India on October 5, two days earlier than the tip of the Asian Games cricket occasion, the BCCI has named a second-string males’s facet. The similar goes for different Asian heavyweights as nicely, taking the sheen off the event with the first-choice gamers compelled to sit down out. However, the Indian ladies’s squad in Hangzhou shall be at full power.

India’s participation boosts cricket’s ongoing quest to be a part of the Olympics.

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