Cricket to return to Olympics?

by Kaitlin | December 11, 2007 at 02:53 pm | 1637 views | 15 comments

Boy playing cricket on a Yorkshire beach.

With the popularity of cricket on the rise, the International Cricket Council has begun to pursue the sport's inclusion in the Olympic games. This comes simultaneous to attempts to popularize the sport in large markets like the United States and China. This year also marked the inaugural ICC Twenty20 World Cup, in which this newly popular, faster style of cricket is played. This year's winners were India.

A Twenty20 game is completed in about three hours, with each innings lasting around 75 minutes, thus bringing the game closer to the timespan of other popular team sports such as football. It was introduced to create a lively form of the game which would be attractive to spectators at the ground and viewers on television and as such it has been very successful. The ECB did not intend that Twenty20 would replace other forms of cricket and these have continued alongside it.

Cricket, widely acknowledged as the world's second most popular sport next to soccer, has not been in the Olympics since 1900. In those games, which took place in Paris, Britain won the gold medal.

The International Olympic Committee granted the International Cricket Council initial recognition Monday. After two years, the ICC can seek full recognition and apply to be part of the Olympics, starting in 2020.

"This is great news for cricket," ICC president Ray Mali said Tuesday. "The Olympic movement is instantly recognizable around the world and for cricket to be a part of that again has to be a good thing."

Flag this story

Upload

Make your good story a great story. Click here to add your photos & video to this story.

Crowd Power

Scan the web to add photos and videos to this story or add them from the NowPublic Archive.

charliel7

at 17:35 on December 11th, 2007

Playing cricket on the beach at Port Willunga, south east from Adelaide, South Australia. A fantastic 30º day with the whole beach to ourselves

Kaitlin

at 17:41 on December 11th, 2007

Awesome photos, charliel! Thanks for sharing them.

Harisha

at 19:11 on December 11th, 2007

Well, For a cricket crazy person from India which has not got Gold in Olympics till now it would be a great delight to see Cricket in Olympics in the form of 20-20.

I personally like playing the game. its great fun.

cynthia yoo

at 19:36 on December 11th, 2007

good stuff:

Kaitlin, beach cricket? that's awesome! as long as it won't have men in speedos

nochesprohibidas

at 02:08 on December 12th, 2007

Street Cricket on Srinagar. (India)

In India the cricket is the sport most played, you can see the people playing jamming matchs on every street.

This photo was taking on sunday morning in Srinagar, (India)

first-pakistan

at 02:33 on December 12th, 2007

www.first-pakistan.blogspot.com

Kingnutin

at 05:13 on December 12th, 2007

Cricket is huge in the sub-continent. Add this to the cricket viewing public in Australia, England, South Africa and the West Indies you get nearly 40% of the world's population. That should be reason enough to include such a popular sport into the Olympics.

amw561

at 05:18 on December 12th, 2007

Wandering the streets of Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India in search of Sidi Bashir Mosque. There was the familiar sight of kids playing cricket in the streets.