games in 2024 will be lift we need...
Tim Wigmore says cricket in the Olympics is simply a no-brainer! The perfect way to grow the game for both genders
The remarkable impact of the Women’s World Cup has been much discussed since Anya Shrubshole sealed England’s enthralling triumph at Lord’s. Yet the most important legacy of all might be to propel cricket towards rejoining the Olympic Games.
The brilliant cricket on display in England over the past month has showcased the quality of the women’s game like never before. Within the International Cricket Council, there is a determination to build on this to grow the sport further. And there is a recognition that nothing would help the women’s game quite like the Olympics, which would provide huge exposure, in traditional cricket territories and beyond, and open up new funding from national governments and the International Olympic Committee themselves.
Cricket’s only previous appearance was in the 1900 Games, when Devon and Somerset Wanderers, representing Great Britain, beat the French Athletic Club Union in Paris, a game that was only officially recognised as part of the Olympics 12 years later.
It is hard to overstate the impact that rejoining the Olympic Games, from 2024, could have. Rugby has received at least £25m through national Olympic committees since rejoining, in addition to extra sponsorship and money from local government. Simply being an Olympic sport would force governments in emerging nations to look at the game in a whole new light. In Germany, for instance, cricket would receive £750,000 a year just by dint of being an Olympic sport, compared to about £150,000 a year from the ICC. China would stand to receive many times more, and rugby has grown there significantly since rugby’s return to the Games was announced in 2009.
So the landscape for Associate and women cricketers throughout the world would be transformed at a stroke. Matt Featherstone, a development director for Cricket Brazil, reflects: “It is almost the first thing anybody says in South America when you try to describe what cricket is. They ask: is it an Olympic sport?”
The schedule would be simple enough. The competitions for both genders would be played in Twenty20, probably with eight teams over two groups of four, culminating in semi-finals and the finals. The identity of the sides would be determined by regional qualification.
The national sides would be a little different to the norm in international cricket – there would be a Great Britain team and no West Indies, with the Caribbean’s constituent nations competing instead (what a qualifying tournament that would be).
The International Olympic Committee has long made their interest in cricket clear. “One of the key challenges facing the IOC is how to reduce the average age of its TV viewers,” explains Kevin Alavy from the sports consultancy Futures Sport. “The inclusion of cricket from the 2024 Olympics would have a material positive impact in that regard, given that the vast majority of the viewership would be likely to be drawn from the Indian sub-continent. A lower average age of global viewers will also assist the IOC in boosting the appeal of the Olympics to potential commercial partners.”
Perhaps this motivation isn’t exactly honourable. But it doesn’t matter: the Olympics are a unique opportunity that cricket would be remiss not to seize. The sport owes it to female cricketers, and to all those trying to grow the game outside of its heavyweight nations.
For giving up a fortnight of its calendar every four years, the gains could be extraordinary. Let us hope that the Board of Control for Cricket in India – the last remaining obstacle – put aside their objections once and for all. This is not certain, but there are clear reasons to be optimistic. If the BCCI is serious about growing women’s cricket, it will sign up. Recent changes in personnel in the BCCI also bode well; so does India’s interest in hosting the 2032 Games.
The Olympics and cricket? For anyone interested in the game expanding, among both genders, the answer should be simple: bring it on.