England’s limited-overs captain Eoin Morgan has stated that T10 should be the format cricket should try to get included in the Olympics. The question of whether cricket could be included in the Olympics is being talked about for decades.
Cricket has included in the Olympics only once so far– the 1900 Summer Olympics with only a men’s contest. Great Britain had won the gold medal in cricket’s only look at the Olympics. In fact, only two cricket teams played Great Britain and the hosts France in the 1900 Olympics.
Cricket was originally scheduled to be included in the inaugural 1896 Summer Olympics. Had that happened, cricket would have been the only team sport held at the Games. There were, however, insufficient entries; therefore, no event was held. Since 1900, cricket has not appeared in the mega event, but the discussion over the same has always been there.
The length of the game has always been a big factor behind cricket, not becoming an Olympics sport. And Eoin Morgan thinks that the short length of a T10 tournament is one of the key reasons it would make a good fit for a multi-sport competition.
“The one thing that T10 offers above the three formats that makes it so appealing to Olympic games or a Commonwealth games is the fact that you can play a whole tournament in the space of 10 days,” Eoin Morgan was quoted as saying by Wisden.
Among the factors, the governing body wants the game in the Olympics is to attract a new audience. As far as Eoin Morgan is worried, the World Cup-winner believes that the short, sharp nature of T10 makes it ideal for capturing a newcomer’s attention.
“When you can play a cricket tournament in eight-10 days, it really does make it appealing, and on top of that, it really would be extremely entertaining,” he stated.
“We have actually seen in all of the seasons of the Abu Dhabi T10 so far, it’s been exceptionally entertaining. There was that factor that if you flick the TV on, you would see something entertaining, and you would see a number of icons of the game playing throughout the day.
“Another one of the appealing things about the tournament over one of the other three formats is that when you purchase a ticket, or you turn the TV for a certain day’s play in cricket you might get to watch your favorite batsman or one hero player, whereas with T10 you get to have a look at three, maybe even four games at a push on one particular day, and every team has an icon or one high-prized professional player that people want to come and watch, that’s extremely appealing,” he added.
