Women’s cricket marked its debut at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England mid this year in the Twenty20 (T20) format and the same was the re-launch of cricket at the Commonwealth Games following its last feature that’d comeback in 1998 in the men’s event in the long 50-over format.
The 2022 edition of the Commonwealth Games, in Cricket, saw Australia, India, and New Zealand have podium finishes having clinched the Gold, Silver and Bronze medals respectively. The success of women’s cricket at the Games this year was so much so that cricket has nearly confirmed a spot in the upcoming 2026 edition of the Commonwealth Games (2026 edition) that’ll be played in Victoria, Australia.
Adding to the Commonwealth Games is the Olympics Games delight for women cricketers as it reportedly has been understood that cricket could return to the Olympics at the Los Angeles Games in 2028 with a 6-team T20 format played competition in both the men’s and women’s game.
The International Cricket Council (ICC) has proposed re-joining the Olympics after a 128-year absence as it is learned that alongside the 28 sports in the initial sports programme for Los Angeles 2028, cricket is one of the 9 other sports shortlisted for inclusion. A final decision on the games to feature will be out next year, with the core programme of sports expected to be finalized around September.
Cricket in Olympics 2028?
Would you like to see it happen? #CricketTwitter | Source: The Telegraph pic.twitter.com/fwI3KTtpNR
— Female Cricket (@imfemalecricket) November 18, 2022
Early insights on the same indicated the ICC has proposed a 6-team event with squads expected to be 14 per team and the men’s and women’s events are expected to be played after each other rather than concurrently to limit costs. The format will see the 2 groups have 3 squads each of which the top two teams will advance to the semi-finals. There would then be the final played for the Gold medal and a 3rd place playoff game will be played for the Bronze medal match.
For LA 2028, the 6 teams to feature during the Olympics will be determined by the ICC World rankings, which means there’ll be no global qualification system. While it’s understood that England will compete as Great Britain, it’ll mean that the England side could potentially rope in players from Scotland and theoretically even Northern Ireland cricketers.
Similarly, Caribbean Islands, too wouldn’t compete as the West Indies, but as individual nations instead, like they did in the Commonwealth Games. West Indies won one slot through the qualification system and the representative was then determined following a competition between the nations, which was won by Barbados.
(The inputs stated above are early developments on the matter which are sourced from The Telegraph)
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