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Aussie cricket legend Adam Gilchrist. Photo Courtesy: Flickr
Aussie cricket legend Adam Gilchrist. Photo Courtesy: Flickr

Cricket: Gilchrist wants T20 in the Olympics

Tue-Aug 05, 2008

New Delhi / NewsX Bureau

The seeds of twenty twenty cricket were sown during the inaugural edition of the Indian Premier league.

Its success has convinced Aussie legend Adam Gilchrist that cricket should be a part of the Olympics.

Gilchrist dreams of watching twenty twenty cricket by the 2020 olympic games.

He says in a column written for a newspaper, "It does not matter where the 2020 games are held, but many of us who've experienced international twenty20 cricket and the IPL are convinced that cricket should bid to become an Olympic sport in time for the games."

Cricket has featured just once in the Olympics. That happened 108 years ago in the 1900 Paris games.

Recently the sport gained recognition status from the International Olympic committee. But competition for Olympics slot is tough as 26 other sports have also gained the same status from the IOC.

Gilchrist feels that being a part of the Olympic will help the sport gain popularity. He said, " I believe the Olympic Games is the vehicle the sport should use to aggressively sell the message of our sport to all 202 competing Olympic nations so our sport is robust in countries where it is currently played and exciting and ground breaking in countries who haven't yet caught the cricket bug."

Gaining program status for a sport in the Olympics is a lenghty procedure. The sport has to be approved by the IOC seven years before the event.

Gilchrist feels that the time to start lobbying for cricket is now. And if Gilchrist's dream turns into reality it would not be long before twenty twenty cricket is played in the bylanes of America, Japan and China.

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