Cricket is all set to feature in the 2028 Olympics as the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) Executive Board on Friday approved the proposal of Los Angeles Games organizers to include the sport in the program.
Apart from cricket, set to be played in T20 format, four other sports — baseball-softball, flag football, lacrosse (sixes), and squash also got the nod of the IOC Executive Board, which met here with President Thomas Bach chairing it.
The proposal will be put to vote during the IOC session which begins here on Sunday.
Bach said the inclusion of these five sports — only for the Los Angeles Games 2028 — was in line with the American sports culture and will also felicitate the Olympic movement to engage with new athletes and fan communities in the US as well as globally.
“The IOC had to take three different decisions. (The) first was about the proposal of the Los Angeles organizing committee to introduce five new sports. These five sports are baseball-softball, flag football, lacrosse (sixes), squash, and cricket,” Bach said during the media briefing after the conclusion of the two-day Executive Board meeting here on Friday.
“We see the growing popularity of cricket, particularly the T20 format. The World Cup (50 overs) is a huge success already,” he added.
Cricket’s shortest format, along with baseball-softball, lacrosse (sixes), squash, and flag football, are the five sports proposed only for the Los Angeles Games in 2028, and if approved, which is likely to be, cricket will be a part of the Olympics for the first time since 1900.
“Baseball/softball, cricket (T20), flag football, lacrosse (sixes), and squash are the five sports submitted by the International Olympic Committee (IOC)’s Executive Board (EB) to the upcoming IOC Session as additional sports for the Olympic Games Los Angeles 2028 (LA28),” the IOC said in a statement.
“These additional sports were proposed by the LA28 Organising Committee for its edition of the Games only and were reviewed by the Olympic Programme Commission (OPC) before being put forward to the EB.”
IOC further said that Part of the Olympic Games program at Paris 1900, cricket has more than 2.5 billion fans worldwide and represents an invaluable opportunity to engage with new countries and communities, including the growing Indian community in the US. Cricket brings a vast social media following. The USA will be hosting the men’s 2024 Cricket T20 World Cup, and a new major professional league- Major League Cricket, was recently launched in the USA. T20 – with a men’s and a women’s tournament – is the format that will be played at LA28.