Former Australian captain Ricky Ponting is excited about the return of cricket at the Olympic Games 2028. Cricket will make a comeback at the biggest sporting spectacle in the Olympics at the Los Angeles Games for the first time after 128 years.
Ponting is looking forward to the sport garnering different audiences and reaching local levels in the US. "It can only be a positive thing for our game. I've sat on various committees over the last 15 or 20 years, and it's always been on the top of almost every agenda - how do we get the game back into the Olympics? And finally, it's there," Ponting said on The ICC Review.
"It's only four years away. I think it also gives cricket a chance to break into the grassroots level in the US," the former Aussie skipper added. Cricket will be played at the Olympics for the second time after being held at the quadrennial Games for the only time in 1900 in Paris. Great Britain and France competed in the 1900 cricket event with the former winning the gold.
"The thing about the Olympic Games, it's not [about] the host nation. It's about the audience that it opens up. The Olympic Games being viewed by so many people all around the world, it just opens up completely different audiences to our game that's seemingly growing on a daily basis anyway. It can only be a real positive thing for the game," Ponting said.
Ponting highlighted that the facilities and the infrastructure for the event will be key. "Facilities and infrastructure and those things are going to be key, and how many [participating] teams they actually decide on. I think it's only six or seven teams that they're talking about, so qualification is going to be at a premium - how you actually qualify to get into the Olympic Games," he said.
"So all those are things to think about, [but] I'm really excited about where the game's headed and the growth of different markets that we're seeing emerge," Ponting added.
