How a heady mix of IPL & Kohli helped cricket secure 2028 LA Olympics berth

T20's fast format and ability to attract a young audience also helped clinch the slot

Long before the advent of the Indian Premier League (IPL), cricket had a tryst with the Olympics.

This was back in 1900, when Paris was gearing up to host the Summer Olympics, and the city’s upscale cycling stadium, the Vélodrome de Vincennes, was being renovated to host Belgium, France, Great Britain and the Netherlands in a cricketing tournament.

Belgium and the Netherlands did not turn up for the event.

Great Britain cobbled up a team comprising amateurs from a touring club called the Devon and Somerset Wanderers.

Hosts France had trouble assembling 12 cricketers, and it seemed cricket’s much-awaited debut at the Olympics would not materialise.

As the story goes, the French (they were called the French Athletic Club Union) somehow convinced local Englishmen who had arrived in Paris to build the iconic Eiffel Tower to play for them.

Great Britain’s rag-a-tag team would go on to win that two-day game.

The winners were awarded silver medals, while France received bronze for turning up for that game.  

It was the only time cricket was part of the official programme at the Olympics.

More than 125 years later, cricket returns to the Olympics, delivering a massive boost to the sport’s global ambitions.

On Monday, on the recommendations of its executive board, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced cricket’s inclusion in the Olympics, along with other sports like squash, baseball, softball, lacrosse and flag football. It will be played in T20 format. 

The announcement could not have come at a more pivotal time, especially when a 50-over cricket World Cup is currently underway in India, and a crucial IOC summit is taking place in the country after a gap of 40 years.  

Cricket as an Olympics event in the US does sound a tad surreal.

Cricketing folklore suggests George Washington, the first US president, had played a sport similar to cricket called “wickets” sometime in 1778.

When IOC president Thomas Bach was asked why this decision took so long, he said: “Cricket has evolved in recent years. I can’t speak about 50 years before (this). What I can see is this great development of cricket, and we have been made aware of this not just in India but also beyond by our IOC member, Nita Ambani… We had a discussion with the Organising Committee of Los Angeles, and everything came together.”

Cricket was for years seen as a laidback sport played by a cosy club of six to eight countries.

Test cricket and the 50-over format, for all the thrills they provided, did not elicit the frenzy and mayhem the sport’s diet version – the T20 format –  did.

Two key tenets paved the way for cricket’s highly-anticipated second innings at the Olympics – the rise of the IPL and the emergence of a certain Virat Kohli.

In the 15 years since its inception, the IPL has rapidly burgeoned to become the second-richest sports tournament in the world, after the National Football League (NFL) in the United States on per-game valuation.

Its “fast and appealing” format and the ability to attract truckloads of young viewers was what helped the IOC choose cricket for the 2028 Los Angeles Games.

Casey Wasserman, the head of the Los Angeles Olympics Organising Committee, who witnessed an IPL game in 2010, said: “I will never forget my first IPL match. It was electric.”

Niccolo Campriani, Italy’s champion Olympic shooter, and the sports director of the Los Angeles 2028 Organising Committee, gushed over Kohli’s spectacular rise as a global sporting icon.

“My friend Virat Kohli has 340 million social media followers, making him the third-most followed athlete in the world. That’s more than LeBron James, Tom Brady and Tiger Woods put together,” Campriani said at the ongoing IOC session in Mumbai.

It is early to say whether Kohli will play in the 2028 Olympics. He would have turned 40 by the time the jamboree descends in Los Angeles. But then, given his enviable fitness levels, and the seduction of representing the country at the Olympics, he might just keep playing for another five years.

The emergence of Major League Cricket (MLC), which was played across the US earlier this year, was another pivotal instance that pulled the needle towards cricket as an Olympic sport.

The MLC, comprising six teams representing major US cities, drew a good amount of interest, especially among the conservative fans who were brought up on baseball and NFL.

“The US is the second-biggest streamers of cricket in the world. Given its strong South-Asian and Australian population, the sport has garnered considerable interest. The MLC coming in this year also played a part,” Eric Garcetti, US ambassador to India, and the former mayor of Los Angeles, told Cricinfo.

“It (cricket in Olympics) can be the perfect amalgamation of Hollywood vs Bollywood (Shahrukh Khan owns an IPL franchise). With the star power on offer, we can show the world that the US also loves cricket, even though we will not abandon baseball,” Garcetti quipped.

Going forward, expect more American, African and European nations to get greater funding from their governments for upgrading their cricketing infrastructure.

Meanwhile, unconfirmed reports from Beijing suggest that a roadmap is in place to assemble a robust, all-round Chinese cricketing team. The battle for cricket Olympic gold has already begun.