"Having Cricket In Olympics Opens Up Completely Different Audience": Ricky Ponting

Legendary Australia cricketer Ricky Ponting said having cricket in the 2028 Olympic Games at the Los Angeles will just open up a completely different audience for the game. Cricket last featured in the Olympics in 1900, and the sport is set to make its long-awaited comeback at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. Cricket was among the five additional sports proposed by the LA28 Organising Committee for inclusion alongside baseball-softball, flag football, lacrosse and squash.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) officially confirmed cricket's inclusion at the 141st IOC Session held in Mumbai in October last year. “It can only be a positive thing for our game. I've sat on various committees over the last 15 or 20 years and it's always been on the top of almost every agenda – how do we get the game back into the Olympics? And finally, it's there.”

“It's only four years away. Once again, in the US by that stage, hopefully, with MLC (Major League Cricket), another four years down the track hopefully growing. Who knows, there might even be more teams in the MLC by then. I think it also gives cricket a chance to break into the grassroots level in the US.”

“But the thing about the Olympic Games, I mean, it's not the host nation. It's about the audience that it opens up. The Olympic Games being viewed by so many people all around the world, it just opens up completely different audiences to our game that's seemingly growing on a daily basis anyway. It can only be a real positive thing for the game,” said Ponting in the latest episode of The ICC Review show.

Ponting, the three-time ODI World Cup winner, recently coached the Washington Freedom, to this year's Major League Cricket title, and had a fair idea of how cricket is viewed