New Delhi: The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has agreed to field men’s and women’s teams in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, if cricket is part of the biggest multi-discipline sporting show on earth.
“The board is agreeable to send both its teams if cricket makes the cut for the LA Olympics. It will be a boost for both men’s and women’s cricket,” The Times of India quoted a senior BCCI official as saying.
BCCI is also open to the idea of sending a women’s team to the 2022 Commonwealth Games scheduled to be held at Birmingham.
The BCCI’s decision, taken at its Apex council meeting, will be a huge boost for the International Cricket Council (ICC) who have been pushing for inclusion of cricket in the Olympics. Cricket had featured once in Olympics, way back in 1900.
BCCI, the richest and most influential cricket body in the world, had so long been reluctant to come under the national anti-doping agency (Nada). That was acting as a major hurdle in ICC’s Olympic goal.
Now that BCCI is under Nada’s umbrella, ICC has formed a committee to deliberate with the International Olympic Committee.