Twenty20 for 2012 – cricket as an Olympic sport
As the Olympics get underway in Beijing today I’m happy to announce the launch of my latest website project – the campaign to get Twenty20 Cricket to be an Olympic sport at the London Olympics in 2012. I’ve been asked to work on the campaign by Murad Qureshi, a member of the London Assembly whose rather more mundane political website I designed prior to the London elections this year.
Why should Twenty20 cricket be an Olympic sport? It’s fun and fast, its played in countries (such as India) that have not traditionally excelled in the Olympics. London also has the venues (The Oval, Lords) to be able to host a cricket tournament at the same time as the main sports. In Beijing the martial art Wushu is being organised alongside the main Olympiad, so why not do the same for cricket in London in 2012?
So how can you support the idea? Sign the petition, support on Facebook, and e-mail your friends about the campaign!
I think if USA was involve in international first class cricket then it would be added to the Olympics , but because they are American everything is going their way which is unfair , I say add 20/20 to Olympics .
Cricket is a second largest loved game in the world after football, it must be included in the Event, secondly England is a home of Cricket and host of Event. Fairly speaking, most of the games in event are boring as then why not Cricket?.
The time frame of 1 cricket game is horribly long (3 hours). If all the teams played a round robin tournament it would be much longer than all the other sports. This was the reason it was excluded in the first place. Baseball is an Olympic sport because of its good time frame and audience interest. Those of you who are saying it should be removed should check their facts first.
@ Stupid Idea
Well your name says it all, yours was a stupid idea to post here. If the Americandos have no idea about the sport it’s their own problem to deal with. Europe has fairly good knowledge about cricket. And, Planet Earth is not made up of just America and Europe. I guess you are just scared that India or Pakistan may beat you at the Olympics
i am big fan of cricket ,cricket is the 2 main sports of the world so i thinks for the bcci
to add the cricket sports in olympic
I think cricket should be included in olympics because countries like india plays cricket which have big population.South africa,pakistan,australia,new zeland,england,sri lanka and west indies also plays cricket for betterment of cricket it should be included in olympics.
Stupid idea, only 5 or six countries will ever have a chance at winning…and only 20 serious federations worldwide out of a possible 200. There is a reason there a 5 rings in the olympic symbol. Europe and the Americas have no idea about the game. Commonweath games, by all means they seem to be attracted to stupid mindless games like cricket and rugby
i think cricket 20-20 is best suitable format for such a massive sport event olympics
i am getting excite meanwhile ….one day india would get gold medal in cricket olympics
cricket should go in olympics.it #2 sport in world with 3 billions of fans.
rugby should also be added.and baseball should be removed from olympic.
ICC needs to quite wasting their time and money on developing cricket in other countries which haven’t even yielded any good result. To emphasis my point further, ICC has reduced the number of participating teams for next world cup (2011) from 16 to 14. Problem right now is that cricket is developing at a crawling speed in other countries under the ICC WCL (World Cricket League, for developing cricket) program.
What ICC needs to do is involve cricket as a part of Olympics 2012 in Britain. Sports like Basketball has got so famous after its initial involvement in Olympics, so why not cricket? This is the perfect chance for cricket to be part of Olympics. If we wait till year 2020 cricket might not be as famous as it is right now and 2020 Olympics might just be looked at as reviving cricket than spreading cricket.
Countries like China, Russia, Germany, USA, etc will actually use their own resources to make better cricketers instead of relying on ICC funding so that they can win Gold medals in cricket. Then cricket will truly be a global sport.
I hope you get it as an olympic sport. My family loves cricket and we’d love it if it was and olympic sport. Plus we’re doing a debate on it so we hope we’ll get it to be an olympic sport!!!
I would love to see Cricket in the olympics. I play for the national Spanish Side. We play countries who you would never think have a National side. there is definitely a call for it.
rummuser is talking drivel. Baseball? Only two countries can possibly win. Cricket has 12 participants that are (or should be) of a similar level – spread evenly across the globe. Twenty20 format knockout would make miracles possible – kenya, scotland, ireland, namibia, holland, canada – the list goes on. 2020 is the tournament you should be petitioning. Rugby should also be considered. Why not when we have to put up with every American sport but for ten-pin bowling?
The deadline for adding new sports to the 2012 Olympics passed back in 2005, so you’re a bit late with this. Only new disciplines for existing sports can be added now.
@rummuser
when baseball whichs even a lesser global sport is part of the Olympics, why not cricket which is actually more global. Dont just say India/Pakistani. Though its restricted to common wealth, why dont you look with this perspective- Cricket is played in Asia, Europe, Australia and African continents.
nooooooooooooo! not cricket! … Rugby!
I’m no big cricket fan, but it seems daft that a big country like India gets so few Olympic medals because the sports it plays best are team sports worth 1 medal per win rather than several per competitor (like e.g. swimming). Having cricket represented would be entirely appropriate at London 2012 for the history but also to reflect a sport played and enjoyed by millions.
we can just support the game !! i think the organisers should think forward to prompt it !! Big governing Bodies like BCCI ,ECB should talk with the london olympics organisers !! which almost in the hands of the president of london olympics 2012 !!!they have to talk with him then !! we are on !! for the best interest of Sub-Continent in the Olympics !!! and let me tell u something the sport will be worldwide famous !! Countries of South America will forget !! what is meant by soccer !! after seeing the stroke play of great cricketer around the world !!!
I think that the idea is wrong. Any sport to be part of the Olympics must be played in a large number of the world’s countries. Cricket is only played in the Commonwealth countries plus a couple of new countries with large Indian/Pakistani/English residents.
I’ve tried today, as have some of the people running this. Problem is they are always too keen to talk to Tories during the interview at teatime, and the Tory bloke they had today said he favoured squash instead. 🙁
Make sure you get TMS involved!