Having cricket in Olympics opens up completely different audience, says Ponting

New Delhi, Aug 11 (IANS) Legendary Australia cricketer Ricky Ponting said having cricket in the 2028 Olympic Games at the Los Angeles will just open up a completely different audience for the game.

Cricket last featured in the Olympics in 1900, and the sport is set to make its long-awaited comeback at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. Cricket was among the five additional sports proposed by the LA28 Organising Committee for inclusion alongside baseball-softball, flag football, lacrosse and squash.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) officially confirmed cricket’s inclusion at the 141st IOC Session held in Mumbai in October last year. “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. The Olympic Games being viewed by so many people all around the world, it just opens up completely different audiences to our game that’s seemingly growing on a daily basis anyway. It can only be a real positive thing for the game,” said Ponting in the latest episode of The ICC Review show.

Ponting, the three-time ODI World Cup winner, recently coached the Washington Freedom, to this year’s Major League Cricket title, and had a fair idea of how cricket is viewed in the USA. “Facilities and infrastructure and those things are going to be key and how many teams they actually decide on. I think it’s only six or seven teams that they’re talking about.”

“So qualification is going to be at a premium, how you actually qualify to get into the Olympic Games. So all those things to think about, I’m really excited about where the game’s headed and the growth of different markets that we’re seeing emerge,” he added on the state of MLC.

Ponting also highlighted how cricket can use baseball’s fanbase to attract attention and boost its popularity. “And the way that I sort of try and compare the two is we’ve all been to games of Major League Baseball. Huge events, the bat and ball game that Americans are growing up with and that game goes for four hours and through the history of the game, there’s less than one home run scored in every game.”

“So when you compare baseball to what the excitement and entertainment package that T20 cricket brings, then it should be a reasonably easy sell to the young kids in the US. So that’d be the angle that I’d be certainly pushing is just the excitement factor that comes with the game. And I think if they do that, then I think it’s very sustainable.”

“There’s huge opportunities for growth, even with the Indian investment in MLC and how keen they are to stay involved and make it big and turn Washington Freedom into a household name in world cricket. Then I think there are some great opportunities there.”

Ponting signed off by being excited about the prospect of serving as either a mentor or coach for the Australian team at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. “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. It’d be special to be a part of, so who knows? We’ll keep my fingers crossed and see what happens.”

–IANS

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