T20 in Olympics? Let’s aim for 2020
World Exclusive By Adam Gilchrist

IMAGINE THIS. 8/8/2020, Olympic Cricket Stadium, Delhi. 120,000 devoted fans at the ground and 3.9 billion worldwide television viewers nervously await the one remaining ball in the gold medal match between India and Pakistan. India has scored a respectable 218 in its 20-overs and Pakistan requires four to win and to become Olympic champion. Spin-wizard Piyush Chawla takes a deep breath and prepares to bowl the ball that stands between him and Olympic gold immortality.

Chawla sends down a perfectly flighted leg-break that whirs as it pitches just outside the line of leg stump. Nasir Jamshed, Pakistan’s champion middle-order batsman is deceived by the flight and plays around the ball while trying to work the delivery forcefully down to deep-square. The spinning cherry spits the middle and the leg stumps, the bails fly and India is the Olympic champion.

This may seem like a pipe dream but it is a potential reality. It doesn’t matter where the 2020 Olympic Games are held but many of us who’ve experienced international Twenty20 cricket and the IPL are convinced that cricket should bid to become an Olympic sport in time for the 2020 Olympic Games, wherever they’re held.

Cricket was part of the 1900 Olympics, when Great Britain beat France. But with Twenty20 cricket here to stay, now is the time for the 10 full member-nations of the ICC to plan for the development of the sport over the next 100 years. Over the next century, the challenge for all of us who love the game is to spread the word of cricket to parts of the globe that have never heard of it and currently don’t play our sport. We have a responsibility to grow our game in new territories and amongst the women of the world. I believe the Olympic Games is the vehicle the sport should use to aggressively sell the message of our sport to all 202 competing Olympic nations, so our sport is strong and robust in countries where it is currently played and exciting and ground-breaking in countries who haven’t yet caught the ‘cricket-bug’.

The IPL has been such a success and has changed cricket forever. I saw the revolution first-hand during my time in Hyderabad. India is now the centre of the cricket world, nobody

Is arguing with that. Having established one of the most the most exciting leagues in world sport Mr Pawar, Mr Manohar, Mr Modi and their colleagues at BCCI along with David Morgan, Mr Bindra and their friends at ICC can now reach for the stars and ensure that Indian cricketers — and others — are winning medals on the world’s biggest stage: The Olympic Games.

They would be investing in the future of the sport because by having a men’s and women’s competition at the Olympic Games many more countries would be drawn to cricket and it wouldn’t surprise me if countries like the USA, China, Italy, France and Japan become competitive very quickly in Twenty20 cricket , especially in women’s Twenty20.

I believe that in time the success of cricket at the Olympic Games will lead to more Test playing nations, something that the sport will need in the coming century.

I look forward to the day when Australia takes on Italy in a Test match in Rome.

I guess you have a few questions — let me answer some of them.

Would the sport lose money? No, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) rewards international federations that compete at the Olympic Games and there would be a dividend for competing nations flowing from ICC to its members, just like at the ICC Cricket World Cup.

Would this compromise FTP cricket? No, with Twenty20 you would only need a small window in August, once every four years, to play the Olympic tournament — possibly as few as ten days.

How does cricket become part of the Olympic Games? Simple, the IOC decide on the sports for an Olympic Games seven years in advance, to allow people time to prepare properly.

Between 2009- 2013 cricket would promote itself to the IOC as a prospective sport and if we get it right, cricket will be invited to the Olympic party in 2020!

How would players feel about competing at the Olympics? Take it from someone who has won almost everything cricket has to offer — the Olympics is the absolute pinnacle in sport.

I know plenty of Olympic champions and know how Sydney 2000 changed Australia — let me tell you it would be massive for cricketers. Cricketers won’t care about the money — the chance to stand on top of the Olympic podium, to wear an Olympic gold medal and the pride of belting out your national anthem would be a life-changing money-can’t-buy experience.

Is it a realistic dream? I really believe it is. The ICC has already taken the step to become a recognised Olympic sport and that is the first step on the road to becoming part of the Olympic programme.

The Olympic movement knows it needs to increase its presence in the Asian sub-continent as India, Pakistan and Bangladesh contribute nearly 22 per cent of the world’s population.

In theory, this is a win-win for the Olympic movement and the ICC and its members.

I believe that all this idea takes to succeed is will, skill and hard work — like any good Test match innings.

If everyone in the sport grasps this opportunity then Twenty20 gold in the 2020 Olympic Games could well be a reality for India and its cricket-crazy fans.

Let the Games begin!