Former Australian captain Ricky Ponting showed his excitement about cricket’s return to the Olympic games in 2028 for the first time in a long 128 years. He also added that one of the main agendas in the committee meetings he attended over the years was how cricket should return to the Olympics. However, Cricket was the last part of the Olympic Games in 1900 in France but it hasn’t been able to make its entry ever since for numerous reasons as well.
But, last year, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) agreed to a request for cricket’s inclusion in the 2028 edition, which will be played in Los Angeles.
Speaking on an episode of the ICC Review, Ponting said, “It can only be a positive thing for our game. I’ve sat on various committees over the last 15 or 20 years and it’s always been on the top of almost every agenda – how do we get the game back into the Olympics? And finally, it’s there. It’s only four years away. Once again, in the US by that stage, hopefully, with MLC (Major League Cricket), another four years down the track hopefully growing. Who knows, there might even be more teams in the MLC by then. I think it also gives cricket a chance to break into the grassroots level in the US. But the thing about the Olympic Games, I mean, it’s not the host nation. It’s about the audience that it opens up.”
However, the USA were also the co-host of this year’s T20 World Cup and the crowds did well too. Meanwhile, Pat Cummins, Travis Head, Lockie Ferguson, Sunil Narine, and Shakib Al Hasan played in MLC this year. Ponting has also claimed that the environment would be surreal during the event as well.
“It’d be a pretty nice job, I reckon, to be a mentor around a cricket team in the Olympic Games, to hang out. I was lucky enough to play in the Commonwealth Games and just to be around the athletes in the villages and stuff was quite a surreal environment to be in for a cricketer. So, look, I wouldn’t say no, but I think there’ll be a lot of people putting their hands up to try and be a mentor or a coach for an Aussie team in the Olympic Games,” Ricky Ponting concluded.
