No Cricket At The Olympics

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Anything where the biggest trophy isn't the Olympic gold shouldn't be at the Olympics.
Test cricket is the only important thing in international cricket, and only T20 would be any chance of being played at the Games. Therefore it shouldn't be there. The idea that it would lead to the game's expansion is a little hopeful as well. There are plenty of Olympic sports that get no traction, even during the Games.

With the cost of hosting Games being absurd as is, spending so much money on ovals that most countries would never have a use for again seems wasteful. From cricket's perspective it would be unlikely to add anything. It would get no coverage outside the cricketing nations, where its not needed anyway. Just as most of us get no coverage of European Handball.
 
Howard Littlejohn said:
Anything where the biggest trophy isn't the Olympic gold shouldn't be at the Olympics.
Test cricket is the only important thing in international cricket, and only T20 would be any chance of being played at the Games. Therefore it shouldn't be there. The idea that it would lead to the game's expansion is a little hopeful as well. There are plenty of Olympic sports that get no traction, even during the Games.

With the cost of hosting Games being absurd as is, spending so much money on ovals that most countries would never have a use for again seems wasteful. From cricket's perspective it would be unlikely to add anything. It would get no coverage outside the cricketing nations, where its not needed anyway. Just as most of us get no coverage of European Handball.
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Well at the moment the ICC has decided on zero expansion so no worries with that even being regarded as hopeful.
 
I'm going to be on the fence on this argument. I believe having cricket at the Olympics would actually help grow the game world-wide and give it more coverage even if it is slow development. My concern though is with scheduling in an already packed international calendar and also how having T20 at the Olympics would take even more focus off the best form of the game.

As far as cricket facilities being built and never used again. I disagree with this; most of the countries in the world that realistically have a chance of hosting the Olympic games play cricket even if it is at a low level and all these new facilities would be a massive boost to these cash tight cricket associate and affiliate nations that would never get the facilities they need to grow the game if it wasn't for the Olympics. Finding quality curators might be more of an issue however.

I think there are good arguments for both sides.
 
I'd like to see cricket at the Olympics but personally think it's got more chance of being played at the Commonwealth Games again considering the sport is one that started within the Commonwealth and is mostly played by Commonwealth nations. Having the sport at the Olympics would give it pretty reasonable exposure to just about every country in the world which couldn't do the sport any harm.

It's disappointing that England and India aren't prepared to wear the financial cost of exposing the game to other nations because of the potential for those two nations to lose money in the near future. This money and "me, me, me" attitude is why cricket is very slow on the uptake outside the major countries and the associates and is what is holding back the sport.
 
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