Cricket, a sport that is a religion for some and entertainment for others has been entertaining its followers over the years. Test matches, ODI’s, they all seem to thrill a cricket fan and with the advent of Twenty20(T20), the sport has generated a lot of interest amongst its followers. In T20, ICC surely has found an interesting event for its fans and with the member boards going ahead to host their own events like the Indian Premier League and the Stanford 20/20 games, people do find cricket a lot more interesting.
With a busy calendar year and too many matches being played around, it gives a thought to ponder if other sporting events such as the Olympics, would keep a cricket enthusiast entertained during his time-off from cricket, whether such events are a time to spend on?
Maybe it does, a multi sport event like the Olympics brings a feeling of one sporting world. A medal prospect and the medal winner are two different situations that generate interest and a sport enthusiast gets the chance to cherish both. Winning a medal in an event as this, is an unexplained happiness the country experiences, a moment of pride, both for the winner and the country. Olympics is a world where not everyone knows cricket, but, it entertains many. Cricketing events like the ICC world cup and innovations such as the T20 world cup, IPL does provide a similar sort of entertainment to its spectators, but, it will be hard to say if cricket betters a multi sporting event in terms of entertainment.
As an individual sport, cricket is a major success and the sport can benefit if it is included in other sporting events too, doing a world of good to its fans if cricket were to be in a multi sporting event and also the dream of winning a medal.
In 1998, cricket was once introduced in The Common Wealth games held in Malaysia, but, the matches were given List A status because of many associated teams participating. South Africa had then won the gold in that event. Unfortunately, it was not included thereafter much to the disappointment of its followers.
Sources indicate that cricket might eventually make a comeback, as specified in the bid offered by Glasgow for the games to be held in 2014. Also, a major effort is in process to globalize the game by introducing the T20 format in 2020 Olympics and opportunities such as these will certainly help to popularize the game.
