Huge boost to Team SA’s medal chances at LA28 Olympics

Cricket’s return to the Olympic Video games in Los Angeles 2028 might be as a six-team T20 event for each genders, the Worldwide Olympic Committee (IOC) has introduced.

Which means precisely half the groups competing in each the lads’s and ladies’s competitions will win a medal.

That means that South Africa would have a double likelihood at a medal.

A have a look at the most recent ICC rankings reveals that the Proteas are ranked sixth, whereas the Proteas girls’s aspect are fifth.

Pricey train

Whereas sending a mixed 30 cricketers – excluding administration groups – to LA28 is a pricey train, Minister of Sport, Arts and Tradition Gayton McKenzie is on document as saying he’d wish to see Staff SA ship an even bigger contingent to Los Angeles in somewhat over three years from now.

Collaborating groups will be capable of area squads of as much as 15 gamers after the IOC allotted quotas of 90 athletes per gender for the occasion.

The IOC has but to disclose how groups will qualify for LA 2028, however it’s understood organisers are eager to utilise cricket as a strategy to improve India’s curiosity within the Olympics.

India, who’re the present T20 World Cup holders, have been a draw for followers on the 2024 World Cup which america co-hosted and signify a industrial alternative for the IOC with sponsors.

Earlier than she was elected, IOC president Kirsty Coventry met with Worldwide Cricket Council chairman Jay Shah in Dubai on the latest Champions Trophy the place LA 2028 was mentioned.

Cricket’s solely earlier look on the Olympics was at Paris 1900, when Nice Britain gained by 158 runs towards France in a one-off ultimate, after the Netherlands and Belgium withdrew.

The England and Wales Cricket Board is known to have held preliminary talks with Cricket Scotland about plans to area a Staff GB.