Associate Cricket Representative At ICC Doesn’t Want USA In LA28 Cricket Competition

Cricket is going to be back at the Olympics for the second time and after a gap of 128 years. The last time it was held, the International Cricket Council (ICC) did not exist and England played a France team that consisted of amateurs in the 1900 Paris Olympics. 

But now, in LA28, which is the official name of the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games, Sumod Damodar, representative of the associate nations at the ICC’s Chief Executives’ Committee, doesn’t want an associate nation, even if it is the hosts USA themselves, at the event. 

The reasoning behind Damodar’s comments arises not from his personal bias, but from a global perspective, where he wants to showcase the best six nations that cricket has to offer at LA28 and make the game appealing to first-time audiences so that it can be retained for future Olympic Games. 

“I’d love an associate member to get in there, but let’s be realistic. Should the U.S. get an automatic place? I’ll say let’s put the best that we can on the show. We’re coming back to the Olympics after 128 years,” Damodar, a Botswana Cricket Association Secretary, was quoted as saying to Reuters.

“We need to make that impression so that people will say, ‘Okay, we don’t want them to go back and beg, please include us’ before every Olympics’," he added. 

Damodar, who is one of the three Associate Cricket Representatives on the ICC committee, stressed the need to increase cricket’s importance as a global sport. He also suggested that the ICC should announce a cut-off date for rankings so that teams would try their best to improve their rankings and qualify for LA28. 

“Like track and field, we need to become a regular Olympic fixture. We need to show them that this product is worth it,” he said. 

“The ICC should announce a cut-off date sometime next year giving all members enough time to improve their rankings,” he added. 

The ICC has not yet decided the format for selecting the top six teams for the Olympics, where cricket will be played in both male and female categories by six teams, at a makeshift venue in California.