Cricket West Indies have urged the International Cricket Council (ICC) to provide Caribbean nations an opportunity to qualify for the 2028 Los Angeles Games and keep away from the area being “shut out of history”. LA 2028 will see cricket returning to the Olympics for the primary time since 1900, with a six-team T20 occasion in each the boys’s and ladies’s recreation set to be included within the programme. The ICC, cricket’s international governing physique, have but to announce the qualification course of however there are considerations within the West Indies, lengthy one of many sport’s established main worldwide groups and the one closest geographically to Los Angeles, that their constituent nations might be excluded.
That’s as a result of whereas the likes of Barbados, Jamaica — the house of Games dash nice Usain Bolt — Antigua and Barbuda and Trinidad and Tobago compete below the West Indies banner when it come to worldwide cricket, these territories are all particular person entities at an Olympics.
So if cricket qualification for LA 2028 is to be determined totally on the premise of world rankings, the occasion might go forward with none Caribbean involvement in any respect.
“All we are asking is that our individual nations’ exceptional Olympic legacy be considered in the conversation,” CWI chief govt Chris Dehring stated Thursday.
“Our nations have proudly flown their individual flags atop Olympic podiums as perennial gold medallists.
“Now, with cricket’s inclusion, we should be sure that our cricketers will not be shut out of historical past. We are able to collaborate. We are able to compete. But above all, we’re asking for equity.”
CWI appear to accept there is no prospect of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) allowing a West Indies team to compete at LA 2028, even though their men’s side were T20 world champions in 2012 and 2016 — when their women took the equivalent female global title.
But in a letter to the ICC, CWI suggested two possible routes for regional representation.
The first would see an inter-Caribbean qualifying tournament should the West Indies men or women find themselves in a qualifying position, allowing the winner to take the region’s spot.
In the second, a dedicated regional qualifying process involving each of the West Indies independent nations would take place.
CWI president Kishore Shallow added: “The Caribbean has at all times punched above its weight on the Olympics, inspiring the world with our athletic brilliance.
“Cricket’s return to the Games in 2028 must not exclude our young cricketers from the same dream that has inspired our athletes.”
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