Cricket in Los Angeles Olympics: Great alternative for sport to get international recognition, says Neeraj Chopra

India’s Olympic javelin champion Neeraj Chopra welcomed cricket’s inclusion in this system for the Los Angeles Games in 2028, saying it is an important alternative for the game to achieve international recognition. On Monday, October 16, cricket was authorised to be a part of the programmed for the Games in 2028 together with squash, lacrosse, flag soccer and baseball-softball.

Neeraj Chopra, who grew to become the primary Indian athlete to win an Olympic Gold in observe and area when he gained the boys’s javelin competitors in Tokyo in 2021, siad cricket’s inclusion is nice information for the nation because it already has a well-established set of groups.

Cricket will return to the Olympics for the primary time for the reason that 1900 Games and the game might be performed within the T20 format.

Notably, India gained the Asian Games Gold in each males’s and ladies’s cricket in Hangzhou earlier this yr whereas the ladies’s staff took the Commonwealth Games silver.

The 5 sports activities have been proposed by Los Angeles officers one week in the past and advisable by the IOC government board on Friday cleared a closing hurdle Monday from the Olympic physique’s full membership. All 5 have been voted in as a single package deal with two “no” votes from about 90 IOC members within the room in Mumbai, India.

“It feels great. It’s great news for India because we already have a very good team. Talented youngsters are coming up and some of them are even playing in the senior team. There is so much more potential. I think this will be our plus point,” Neeraj Chopra instructed Olympic Khel.

“We already have a very good team. For cricket, the sport, it’s a great news. It will get recognition as a global sport. A lot of times, people say cricket is played by only a few countries. The sport coming to the Olympics… if it can make a mark, it will be great for the sporting world. Cricket will be exported to the globe, more countries will be playing it,” he added.

Cricket’s push to change into a worldwide sport will get an enormous increase when it turns into a part of the Olympic Games.

The Olympic Games is estimated to have an viewers of greater than 3 billion viewers throughout TV and digital platforms, representing a singular alternative for cricket to interact new audiences and additional increase the game’s attain the world over, opening the door to a brand new era of cricket fanatics.

India’s males’s cricket staff is the No. 1 facet throughout all codecs. The Asian giants gained the inaugural version of the T20 World Cup in 2007 however the ICC title within the shortest format of the sport has eluded them since.

Published On:

Oct 16, 2023