Cricket at the Summer Olympics

Cricket at the Summer Olympics
Events	1 (men: 1; women: 0)
Games
1896 1900 1904 1908 1912 1920 1924 1928 1932 1936 1948 1952 1956 1960 1964 1968 1972 1976 1980 1984 1988 1992 1996 2000 2004 2008 2012 2016 2020 2024
Medalists
Tournaments (Men・Women)

Cricket has been part of the Summer Olympics program. The only time it has been played was at the 1900 Summer Olympics with only a men's contest, won by Great Britain. It is scheduled to be included again in 2028.

Inclusion

Vélodrome de Vincennes hosted the cricket matches at the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris.

Main article: Cricket at the 1900 Summer Olympics

Cricket was originally scheduled to be included in the inaugural 1896 Summer Olympics, which were held in Athens: cricket would have been the only team sport held at the Games. However, due to insufficient entries the tournament was cancelled.

Cricket was held at the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris four years later but only two countries competed, Great Britain and hosts France. The French team was mostly represented by English expatriates, and it is officially considered a mixed team ^{[1] [2]} while the English team was represented by Devon and Somerset Wanderers Cricket Club, so it was not nationally selected. The players were also mostly club cricketers — only the British side had any first-class cricket experience, with eight such games through Somerset's Montagu Toller and Alfred Bowerman. ^[3]

The teams played a two-day match over two innings with 12-a-side, so the match did not attract first-class status. Great Britain won the match by 158 runs to win the gold medal: ^{[4] [5]} if the French had held out for five more minutes, the game would have been declared a draw. ^[6] Knowledge of the game would have been lost but for the forethought of John Symes, a member of the victorious team, who kept a scorecard in his own writing.

A cricket tournament was scheduled for 1904 Summer Olympics held in St. Louis, but it was cancelled due to a lack of entries. ^[7]

Reintroduction in 2028

Poster of the only Olympic cricket match

Many of cricket's governing bodies, including the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), were long opposed to a return to the Olympics. ^[8] The ECB withdrew their opposition in 2015, ^[9] and in March 2017, it was reported that International Cricket Council chief Dave Richardson thought the "time is right" for Olympic cricket. ^[10] It was also reported that the opposition of the BCCI had softened. ^[11]

In October 2020, USA Cricket stated that it saw a proposed inclusion of cricket in the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles as a long-term goal. ^{[12] [13]} In 2020, the BCCI in its Annual General Meeting decided to back the ICC's bid for inclusion of T20 cricket in 2028 after getting some clarifications from the International Olympic Committee. ^{[14] [15] [16]} In August 2021, the ICC confirmed its plans to bid for the inclusion of cricket at the Olympics, starting with the 2028 and 2032 games. ^[17]

On 9 October 2023, the 2028 Olympic organising committee announced that cricket was on the list of sports they wished to introduce. ^[18] On 13 October 2023, the IOC announced that the bid was accepted and placed under voting to finalize its inclusion in 2028 during the 141st IOC Session in Mumbai between 14 and 16 October 2023. It was confirmed on 16 October 2023 that cricket would be featured in the 2028 Olympics as only two voted against inclusion, including both men's and women's T20 tournaments. ^{[19] [20] [21] [22]}

National representation

The United Kingdom competes at the Olympics as Great Britain, and includes athletes from England, Scotland, Wales and those British Overseas Territories without their own Olympic team, while athletes from Northern Ireland can choose to represent either Great Britain or Ireland. In cricket, Scotland has its own team although native Scots have played for England in the past, Welsh players may play for the England team, and the Ireland team represents all of Ireland, although again in the past, when Ireland was not a Test-playing team, native Irishmen played for England. Great Britain may, in addition, feature players eligible for ICC 'associate' teams such as the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, Jersey and Turks and Caicos Islands.

The West Indies cricket team covers much of the Caribbean, which has twelve Olympic associations: Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, British Virgin Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Trinidad and Tobago and United States Virgin Islands. For example, in the 50-over tournament held at the 1998 Commonwealth Games, Curtly Ambrose and Richie Richardson represented Antigua and Barbuda.

West Indies cricketers from Anguilla and Montserrat would be eligible for Great Britain at the Olympics, and those from Sint Maarten would be eligible for the Netherlands.

Men's tournament

Results

Year	Host	Gold medal match			Bronze medal match
		Gold medalists	Result	Silver medalists	Bronze medalists	Result	Fourth place
1900	Paris	Great Britain	Great Britain won by 158 runs [4]	France [1]	Only two teams competed
2028	Los Angeles	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD

Participating nations

Number refer to the final placing of each team at the respective Games.
Host nation is shown in bold.

Nation	1900	2028	Years
Great Britain	1		1
France	2		1
United States	–	Q	–
Total nations	2	TBD

Performance by countries

Team	Gold medals	Silver medals	Bronze medals	Fourth place	Medals
Great Britain	1 (1900)				1
France		1 (1900)			1

Women's tournament

Results

Year	Host	Gold medal match			Bronze medal match
		Gold medalists	Result	Silver medalists	Bronze medalists	Result	Fourth place
2028	Los Angeles	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD

Participating nations

Number refer to the final placing of each team at the respective Games.
Host nation is shown in bold.

Nation	2028	Years
United States	Q	–
Total nations	TBD

Performance by countries

Team	Gold medals	Silver medals	Bronze medals	Fourth place	Medals
TBD

Overall medal table

• Total medals won by any country.

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	Great Britain  (GBR)	1	0	0	1
2	France  (FRA)	0	1	0	1
Totals (2 entries)		1	1	0	2

Venues

Games	Venue	Other sports hosted at venues for those games	Capacity	Ref.
1900 Paris	Vélodrome de Vincennes	Cycling, Football, Gymnastics, Rugby union	Not listed	[23]
2028 Los Angeles	TBC	To be confirmed

References

1. IOC. "Paris 1900 cricket men Results - Olympic cricket". Olympics.com. Retrieved 9 August 2021.
2. "Olympic Analytics - Medals by Countries". olympanalyt.com. Retrieved 31 January 2022.
3. Bery, Scyld (5 April 2012). "We should salute the wonder of Devon Wanderers, Olympic cricket champions for 112 years". The Daily Telegraph .
4. Buchanan, Ian (1993). Mallon, Bill (ed.). "Cricket at the 1900 Games" (PDF). Journal of Olympic History. 1 (2). International Society of Olympic Historians: 4. Archived from the original (PDF) on 7 September 2008.
5. Williamson, Martin (9 August 2008). "The ignorant Olympians". Cricinfo . ESPN . Retrieved 4 November 2010.
6. Joint, Laura (21 August 2008). "When Devon's cricketers won Olympic gold". BBC.
7. Matthews, George R. (22 July 2005). America's First Olympics: The St. Louis Games of 1904. University of Missouri Press. ISBN   9780826264756.
8. Kalra, Gaurav (23 June 2014). "BCCI's opposition to Olympics cricket 'disappointing'". ESPN Cricinfo. Retrieved 17 October 2023.
9. Gibson, Owen (14 July 2015). "ECB drops opposition to T20 cricket being in Olympics, says MCC". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 October 2023.
10. Wigmore, Tom (25 July 2017). "Cricket is on the verge of making its application for Olympic inclusion". The Guardian .
11. Wigmore, Tom (24 July 2017). "Women's World Cup success moves cricket closer to Olympic return in 2024". The Guardian .
12. "USA Cricket plan to make country leading nation in the sport". Inside the Games. 16 October 2020. Retrieved 17 October 2020.
13. "USA Cricket targets ICC full member status by 2030". SportsPro Media. 16 October 2020. Retrieved 17 October 2020.
14. "With Powerful India's Support, Cricket Moves Closer To 2028 Los Angeles Olympics Inclusion". Forbes. Retrieved 28 July 2021.
15. "IPL 2022 teams: BBCI okays 10 team IPL from 2022, backs inclusion of cricket in the Olympics". The Times of India. 24 December 2020. Retrieved 24 December 2020.
16. "BCCI Clears 10-Team IPL From 2022, Backs Cricket's Inclusion In Olympics | Cricket News". NDTVSports.com. Retrieved 24 December 2020.
17. "ICC confirms cricket's Olympic ambition". International Cricket Council. Retrieved 10 August 2021.
18. Wharton, David (9 October 2023). "L.A. names coveted five provisional sports it wants to add for 2028 Olympics". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 10 October 2023.
19. "T20 cricket confirmed as one of five new sports at LA28". ESPNcricinfo. 16 October 2023. Retrieved 16 October 2023.
20. "IOC accepts recommendation to include T20 cricket in 2028 Los Angeles Olympics". ESPNcricinfo. 13 October 2023. Retrieved 16 October 2023.
21. "Cricket officially confirmed for LA Olympics 2028 | Cricbuzz.com". Cricbuzz. 16 October 2023. Retrieved 16 October 2023.
22. "Cricket going for gold as Olympic Games inclusion confirmed for 2028". www.icc-cricket.com. Retrieved 16 October 2023.
23. 1900 Summer Olympics official report. Archived 28 May 2008 at the Wayback Machine pp. 15–16. Accessed 14 November 2010. (in French)