The Cricket Antilles have urged the International Cricket Council (ICC) to give the Caribbean nations a chance to qualify for the Los Angeles 2028 Games and to prevent the region from being “excluded from history”. The 2028 will see cricket returning to the Olympic Games for the first time since 1900, with a T20 event with six teams in the male and female game which will be included in the program. The ICC, the world director of cricket, has not yet announced the qualification process, but there are concerns in the Antilles, one of the major established international teams in sport and the only geographically closer to Los Angeles, that their constituent countries could be excluded.
This is because, although the tastes of Barbados, Jamaica – the Sprint Great Usain Bolt – Antigua and Barbuda and Trinidad and Tobago games Maison Rivalis under the Banner of the Antilles with regard to international cricket, these territories are all individual entities at Olympic Games.
So, if the cricket qualification for the 2028 must be decided mainly on the basis of the world ranking, the event could continue without any involvement of the Caribbean.
“All we are asking for is that the exceptional Olympic inheritance of our individual countries is taken into account in the conversation,” said Chris Dehring of CWI on Thursday.
“Our nations proudly piloted their individual flags at the top of the Olympic podiums as a sustainable gold medalists.
“Now, with the inclusion of cricket, we must make sure that our cricket players are not excluded from history. We are ready to collaborate. We are ready to compete. But above all, we ask for equity.”
CWI seems to accept that there is no prospect that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) allows a team of the Antilles to compete in 2028, even if their male team was world champions T20 in 2012 and 2016 – when their wives won the equivalent women’s title.
But in a letter to the ICC, CWI suggested two possible routes for regional representation.
The first would see an inter-coat of qualification tournament if the men or women of the Antilles find themselves in a qualification post, allowing the winner to take the place of the region.
In the second, a dedicated regional qualification process involving each independent nations of the Antilles would take place.
CWI president Kishore, Shallow added: “The Caribbean have always struck its weight at the Olympic Games, inspiring the world with our athletic brilliance.
“The return of cricket to the games in 2028 should not exclude our young crickets of the same dream who inspired our athletes.”
(With the exception of the title, this story has not been published by NDTV staff and is published from a unionized flow.)
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