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Cricket in Olympics

silentstriker

The Wheel is Forever
I understand it, I just dont have a lot of time for it and I certainly do not understand it.
:detective:

I know what you mean.

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.
Oh, I agree. I personally don't care, least of all if it's T20 crap stuff, but people are wrong when they say the players and the fans (at least from subcontinent) would not rate it as the biggest thing in their careers. The analogies to other sports like football are not apt because they don't take into account the relative paucity of medals in the subcontinent vs. UK or Australia.

Regarding Stanford, yea, they really look for excellence. A side point - my sister was applying there, and she is applying for PhDs in neuroscience and yet they still had a whole essay for all the sports she plays :p......
 

SirBloody Idiot

Cricketer Of The Year
I don't mean does it matter to those countries individually, I mean does the fact that a few nations would be really chuffed if they could take home a medal mean we should make it an Olympic sport? No, IMO.

For what it is worth, a gold medal for the Australian cricket team would no doubt be very exciting for all involved and I'm sure it'd get good coverage here.
 

Kensashi

School Boy/Girl Cricketer
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.
You haven't seen the Olympics, have you? Discus throw and Hammer throw come into mind...

I bet they would have puked at the sight of women participating as well.
 
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Cruxdude

International Debutant
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.
I am at Stanford now. :happy:
 

Goughy

Hall of Fame Member
I am at Stanford now. :happy:
Excellent. You play cricket there?

I dont want to sound overly harsh about cricket gold. I think it is a great idea for cricket to be in the Olympics. If England (or GB&NI) won then I would be very happy. I also think it would be a great showcase for our sport. I just dont see the need to get carried away with it.
 

Smudge

Hall of Fame Member
If the Twenty20 World Cup was replaced by an Olympic competiton, it may have some merit (particularly as that seems to be one of the requirements that the IOC has placed on rugby sevens), but I'm not a fan overall. Too many sports in the Olympics as it is.
 

Cruxdude

International Debutant
Excellent. You play cricket there?

I dont want to sound overly harsh about cricket gold. I think it is a great idea for cricket to be in the Olympics. If England (or GB&NI) won then I would be very happy. I also think it would be a great showcase for our sport. I just dont see the need to get carried away with it.
We do have a proper cricket team but I haven't had the time for regular practice and all. Play infrequently with Pakistani guys here (who are all scaled versions of Afridi BTW) with taped ball. Also played 4 games against UC Berkeley which we won 3-1. The standard is not great but not too bad either.
 

slippyslip

U19 12th Man
How do we know the BCCI wont have flogged the crap out of Twenty20 by 2020 and no one cares in this nanosecond attention span era?

But everyone has ignored the biggest hurdle to any form of cricket in the Olympics:

How the hell will non cricket nations that get selected to host the Olympics build a cricket stadium(s) that will handle the amount of cricket played in a short period of time? And what the hell would a non cricket playing nation do with an oval shaped field after the Olympics? Talk about a white elephant.

The 2020 Olympics will definitely go to the USA if an American city bids (and I dont see why a city wont) Ok, you could create drop in pitches and get curators from around the world to take care of that. But you would need more than one ground to handle the amount of cricket being played. How would you like to play a final on a drop in pitch that has been used extensively for the past 2 weeks?

Obviously the IOC's main attraction to cricket is the Asian subcontinent. If the IOC could make the rest of the Olympics popular in India/Pakistan/Sri Lanka/Bangladesh and now Afghanistan it would give it a tremendous boost above that of the football world cup.

The 1998 Commonwealth Games cricket tournament was played on 6 different grounds but the matches only had List A status. Unless the Olympics were being played in test nations there would be no way the quality of the grounds would meet international standards on top of the fact that the West Indies would be split up and Scottish players would be eligible to play for the Great Britain team.

You could lower the logistical demand by limiting the amount of teams playing at the Olympics but this wouldnt be much use to cricket since the developing teams wouldnt get to see their teams play and interest would only be in the established countries that would inevitably make the Olympic finals.
 

slippyslip

U19 12th Man
Not sure I follow?

If only six or seven countries are going to be competitive and actually give a **** whether or not their team takes home a medal or not, it should not be an Olympic sport.
How many teams are competitive in basketball? Australia made the quarter-finals and played the USA where we were totally and utterly smashed. Spain and Argentina are the only 2 countries that come even remotely close to the USA in men's basketball.

And its worse in women's basketball. Australia smashes every team they face only to get smashed themselves by the USA in the final. Look at womens basketball at the last 3 Olympics.
 

Jarquis

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
You haven't seen the Olympics, have you? Discus throw and Hammer throw come into mind...

I bet they would have puked at the sight of women participating as well.
I've felt like puking after seeing some of the women competitors tbf.
 

Goughy

Hall of Fame Member
We do have a proper cricket team but I haven't had the time for regular practice and all. Play infrequently with Pakistani guys here (who are all scaled versions of Afridi BTW) with taped ball. Also played 4 games against UC Berkeley which we won 3-1. The standard is not great but not too bad either.
Yeah, I played against them enough times. Good group of guys as well from that I remember.
 

silentstriker

The Wheel is Forever
Not sure I follow?

If only six or seven countries are going to be competitive and actually give a **** whether or not their team takes home a medal or not, it should not be an Olympic sport.
There are lots of sports where less than seven countries are really competitive.
 

silentstriker

The Wheel is Forever
How many teams are competitive in basketball? Australia made the quarter-finals and played the USA where we were totally and utterly smashed. Spain and Argentina are the only 2 countries that come even remotely close to the USA in men's basketball.

And its worse in women's basketball. Australia smashes every team they face only to get smashed themselves by the USA in the final. Look at womens basketball at the last 3 Olympics.
Heh, beat me to it. Three countries have won the Gold in Basketball....out of 14 tries games. I'd bet you'd get a higher variety in cricket.

Hell, even swimming, out of 200 or so golds, 100 have been won by Americans....
 

silentstriker

The Wheel is Forever
And if you talk about participants....synchronized swimming? Really? How many people in the world participate in synchronized swimming in their leisure time?

Cricket has a much stronger case than so many other sports, and definitely should be in there IMO.
 

wfdu_ben91

International 12th Man
If India want to win a Gold Medal so badly then the ICC should just blackmail the BCCI into closing down to IPL if they want cricket in the Olympics.
 

silentstriker

The Wheel is Forever
ICC really has nothing to do with cricket in the olympics as far as I know - I think it just has to be nominated as a sport by an x number of countries.
 

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