LA Olympics 2028: Cricket to have six-team format for both men, women

At LA 2028, cricket will be played in the fast-paced T20 format, with six teams competing in both the men's and women's tournaments.

 Cricket at the LA 2028 Olympic Games will feature six teams each in the men’s and women’s tournaments, it was confirmed on Wednesday.

The sport, absent from the Olympics for over a century, last featured at Paris 1900, where a one-off, two-day match between Great Britain and France was held–now recognised as an unofficial Test.

At LA 2028, cricket will be played in the fast-paced T20 format, with six teams competing in both the men’s and women’s tournaments. A total of 90 athlete quotas have been allocated for each gender, allowing every team to name a 15-member squad as per Olympic.com.

The International Cricket Council (ICC) consists of 12 ‘full members’ – Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, England, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, the West Indies and Zimbabwe. Another 94 countries represent ‘associate members.’

India (men) and New Zealand (women) are the current T20 world champions.

The event programme and athlete quotas for LA 2028 were approved by the Executive Board (EB) of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on Wednesday.

Cricket is one of five new sports to feature at the upcoming Olympics. The IOC approved cricket’s inclusion for LA28 two years ago, along with baseball/softball, flag football, lacrosse (sixes) and squash.

The cricket venues for LA 2028 are yet to be confirmed. The schedule will be finalised closer to the Games.
Cricket‘s inclusion at LA28 follows a growing trend of the sport making an appearance at different multi-sport events. A men’s cricket tournament was held at the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur while the women’s game made its CWG debut at Birmingham 2022.

Both men’s and women’s cricket tournaments played in the popular T20 format, were part of the Asian Games in 2010, 2014 and 2023.

Eight teams participated at the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games while at the Hangzhou Asian Games, 14 teams competed in the men’s event while nine played the women’s competition. (ANI)

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