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Cricket in Olympics

silentstriker

The Wheel is Forever
You commented on it when he won the 10m air rifle in 2008 olympics - India's only (and first for a long time) individual gold. :p.
 

Goughy

Hall of Fame Member
You commented on it when he won the 10m air rifle in 2008 olympics - India's only (and first for a long time) individual gold. :p.
Ah him :p

To be fair to myself I cant remember yesterday yet alone obscure sportsmen from obscure sports even if I read about them
 

BoyBrumby

Englishman
We're not talking about if it will get funding from the Indian government - that's highly doubtful. Cricket already has the interest and participation. We're talking about how much the players and the public would rank it compared to other achievements in cricket.
Can't vouch for either, but for the players at least I doubt it'd rank alongside a world cup win or winning a test series in Australia.

The Commonwealth includes every test nation and, whilst the Commonwealth Games aren't close to the Olympics in prestige, the response to cricket's inclusion in the 98 games was so muted the experiment hasn't been repeated since. & I suppose baseball is the nearest relative of cricket to make the Olympics of late and that was so underwhelming it's been dropped.

As Goughy alluded to, sports without Olympic pedigrees can't have one manufactured for them.
 

silentstriker

The Wheel is Forever
I'd be willing to be it'd be quite different. I think if this goes anywhere, I'm sure the players will weigh in on that. Only one I know who has weighed in was Yuvraj, who said it'd be the biggest thing in his life, but obviously I don't know how seriously to take that.
 

wfdu_ben91

International 12th Man
Equal to the Ashes? pfft.

The Olympics isnt that big a deal for sports that have an external structure eg football, tennis etc.
Disagree. It's the pinnacle for some, no doubt (athletics and swimming, certainly), but for football, for instance, it hardly registers.
But the Ashes is only competitive when it's in England (:p) and it Ashes only involves England and Australia.

The Olympics would involve all of the cricketing countries, which means there is more at stake and weather the English or Aussie supporters like it or not, the players are gonna have to care as much as they do for the Ashes if they stand a chance at winning, much like the World Cup.
 

Goughy

Hall of Fame Member
But the Ashes is only competitive when it's in England (:p) and it Ashes only involves England and Australia.

The Olympics would involve all of the cricketing countries, which means there is more at stake and weather the English or Aussie supporters like it or not, the players are gonna have to care as much as they do for the Ashes if they stand a chance at winning, much like the World Cup.
Do you really want me to post my pinions of the cricket World Cup compared to Test cricket?

Im all for cricket in the Olympics. It would be a great event. It would be a celebration of the sport though rather than a serious comp.
 

silentstriker

The Wheel is Forever
It would be a celebration of the sport though rather than a serious comp.
I'll maintain that this would be true only for a few countries. Not that I'd personally give a rats ass about any competition not involving Test matches...

No point in arguing though, we'll find out if/when it gets more concrete and people start offering their opinions.
 

NUFAN

Y no Afghanistan flag
T20 Cricket on ice would be awesome at the Winter Olympics. Vimes to skipper Norway to victory IMO.
 

Pothas

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
I personally don't really like to see any massive sport in the Olympics, certainly Football which is entiretly pointless and to a lesser extent Tennis. Just think that having these Sports where an Olympic medal is not an especially important achievement rather cheapens the Olympics as a whole as well as deflecting atention away from lesser known Sports.

Would not really mind if Cricket was in the Olympics and it might help spread its appeal but can't say that I can drum up all that much enthusiasm for it.
 

Jono

Virat Kohli (c)
Hmmm, agree with SS. India winning a gold medal T20 comp would be huge for the masses, even if most people saw it as not too big a deal.

Especially since the plan for the T20 world cup seems to be to hold one every forthnight :dry:
 

Shri

Mr. Glass
The inclusion of cricket would be a disgrace to the Olympics imo. It is supposed to be an event where the finest athletes from across the world compete for supremacy with all its history and all. The guys who took part in the inaugural edition in Athens will puke in their graves if they see Ramesh Powar, Dwayne Leverock(:wub:) or Kallis or any other fat guy running around in a joke jersey. Olympics should just stick to athletic events.
 

nightprowler10

Global Moderator
I can bet on all of Pakistan going as nuts as they were when we won the T20 WC if we were to win an Olympic gold medal. The amount of attention Naseem Hameed is getting for acquiring a gold in the SAARC games is proof IMO.
 

Furball

Evil Scotsman
The inclusion of cricket would be a disgrace to the Olympics imo. It is supposed to be an event where the finest athletes from across the world compete for supremacy with all its history and all. The guys who took part in the inaugural edition in Athens will puke in their graves if they see Ramesh Powar, Dwayne Leverock(:wub:) or Kallis or any other fat guy running around in a joke jersey. Olympics should just stick to athletic events.
Like shooting?
 

zaremba

Cricketer Of The Year
The inclusion of cricket would be a disgrace to the Olympics imo. It is supposed to be an event where the finest athletes from across the world compete for supremacy with all its history and all. The guys who took part in the inaugural edition in Athens will puke in their graves if they see Ramesh Powar, Dwayne Leverock(:wub:) or Kallis or any other fat guy running around in a joke jersey. Olympics should just stick to athletic events.
I don't think that harking back to the early days of the modern Olympics really proves much. Cricket was in fact played in the second Olympics in 1900, as were golf and croquet. Powerboat racing featured in 1908.
 

silentstriker

The Wheel is Forever
I can bet on all of Pakistan going as nuts as they were when we won the T20 WC if we were to win an Olympic gold medal. The amount of attention Naseem Hameed is getting for acquiring a gold in the SAARC games is proof IMO.
Yea, exactly. I think people from UK, Aus, and others don't quite realize how big a deal every little medal is to both the athelete and the public.

Having a population of 1 billion and barely winning 1 gold per Olympics - if lucky - is something people are completely desperate to change.
 

andyc

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
On the question of how the players themselves would value it, I remember reading in Steve Waugh's autobiography that them failing to win the gold in the 1998 Commonwealth Games was one of his biggest career disappointments. I think that if you're competing at anything in the Olympics, there's going to be a a lot of meaning attached to it. The question is just whether the ICC and the countries and even county/state teams would be willing to give the players a window of time off for them to compete.
 

Goughy

Hall of Fame Member
Yea, exactly. I think people from UK, Aus, and others don't quite realize how big a deal every little medal is to both the athelete and the public.

Having a population of 1 billion and barely winning 1 gold per Olympics - if lucky - is something people are completely desperate to change.
I understand it, I just dont have a lot of time for it and I certainly do not understand it. I guess it depends to what people aspire to want. Using college as an example, I love the fact that at Stanford your dorm mate could be a World champion at something but noone makes a fuss if in fact they even knew about it. Other colleges are of course more celebrity focus and less used to exellence. A note on Stanford, it it was a country it would have been in the top 10 on the 2008 Olympics medals table (25 medals, 8 gold). It isnt that I dont realize what it would be like for a nation to win gold, its just that I dont like the mentality of national celebration.

I actualy think the UK builds its Olympians up far too much after sucess so God only knows what it would be like elsewhere.
 
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SirBloody Idiot

Cricketer Of The Year
But does it really matter whether Indians and Pakistanis would value an Olympic gold medal in cricket? At the end of the day, if they are so starved for medals I'm sure they'd be just as pleased with winning a Mahjong gold medal.

The only real reason cricket should enter the Olympics is if it has the potential to help it grow out of the countries it is currently popular in. The question is if places like the US, China, Russia, etc. would ever value a cricket gold medal as opposed to countries where the potential for growth is pretty much non-existent.
 

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