T20 cricket is natural fit for Olympics: USOC official

Chief External Affairs Officer at the US Olympic Committee, Patrick Sandusky, has told ESPNcricinfo that “all sports should want to be in the Olympics” and the shortest format of the cricket would fit for the 17-day Olympic schedule.

He said that the sport or the people heading the ICC had to make a decision on this. “I see the Olympics as the pinnacle of the sport and the greatest sports festival there is but I think cricket needs to [make a decision] on their own time, whatever that is,” Sandusky said.

“I don’t know enough about the internal governance of the ICC and how it would relate into bidding for a potential future slot, but I’d certainly think that Twenty20 cricket at least is a very natural fit in terms of numbers/size of teams, number of days a tournament can be played in and could it fit with an Olympic calendar, not unlike a Rugby Sevens tournament,” he explained.

He also said that, if cricket is included in the Olympics, it will start targeting new and different markets apart from the traditional Olympic markets, considering the number of TV viewers recorded during an India-Pakistan clashes.

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“If you look at cricket in the market and the number of people that are interested in cricket and you look at the staggering TV numbers when India plays Pakistan, I think that there’s a huge opportunity for the Olympics,” Sandusky said. “If cricket were in the Olympics, I think it goes to targeting new and different markets than your traditional Olympic markets as well as exposing a market like the United States to cricket as well, or you could pick out a country like Germany that maybe isn’t as well known in cricket but a big sporting nation in the Summer Games.”

“Countries like India that have such large television markets might be more interested in the Olympic Games,” Sandusky said. “I think the Olympics what it would gain is you’re just hitting new fans with the Olympic brand.”

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He also went onto to point out that, Olympics is a global platform to showcase all the sports for the next generation. “If a kid says maybe he didn’t find a sport he liked and they look on TV and say, ‘Hey what’s that sport of cricket? Maybe I’d like to do that.’ I think that’s what the Olympics brings in a global sense, exposure to showing kids that there’s all these different sports that they can play,” he concluded.