Former Australia cricket captian Ricky Ponting has given his public support to calls by the MCC World Cricket Committee for Twenty20 cricket to be included as an Olympic sport.
Some officials in major cricket nations such as England have long been resistant to the idea of the sport joining the Olympics, fearing the impact it could have on its own home season.
However, others within cricket see the Games as an ideal way to spread the game globally, as emerging nations can receive government funding for Olympic-linked sports.
Photo: Reuters
Ponting, who serves on the Committee alongside fellow former Test captains Mike Brearley (England), Shaun Pollock (South Africa) and Sourav Ganguly (India), told reporters at Lord’s on Tuesday: “It was quite unanimous throughout the members of this committee that we should look to grow the game into an Olympic sport.”
“The opportunity to open up different markets, considering the Olympics is the pinnacle of global sport, to be able to get cricket into something like that would be an awesome spectacle in itself,” Ponting said at a news conference following a two-day meeting. “It would be great for the growth and development of cricket, obviously talking about T20 cricket here.”
“There were a number of things that were tossed around, whether, like with football, make it an Under-23 tournament,” he said, referring to the rules for soccer in the Games.
“The whole discussion [a]round cricket being in the Olympics was very positive,” he said.
“That’s one way of breaking into some of these markets and attracting new audiences into the game, which I think the game needs right now,” he added.
Rugby Union, where many of the major nations are the same as those in cricket, will see its shortest format, Sevens, make its Olympic debut at next year’s Games in Rio de Janeiro.
The committee said a plan by the International Cricket Council, now effectively controlled by the sport’s three wealthiest nations of India, England and Australia, to cut the 2019 World Cup in England to a 10-team event was a “retrograde step.”
This year’s edition in Australia and New Zealand featured 14 teams and there are fears for the future of cricket in emerging countries if they no longer have the incentive of a realistic shot at World Cup qualification.
The MCC world cricket committee put forward a proposal for a 12-team event with a preliminary qualifying round.
In a statement, it said a 10-team World Cup was a “retrograde step that damages the potential for growth in cricket’s developing nations.”
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but