ECB Chairman wants cricket to be an Olympic sport

ECB Chairman Collin Graves (left) wants Cricket to be included in the 2024 Olympics

Collin Graves, Chairman of the England & Wales Cricket Board (ECB), has publically stated his support for cricket’s inclusion in the Olympics, ESPNCricinfo reports. The 67-year-old is the second high-profile cricket administrator to offer his backing for the idea after Wally Edwards, the chairman of Cricket Australia, did the same, earlier this year.

"I think it should be an Olympic sport in one format or another," Graves said. "It's extending the sport throughout a number of countries. Associates and everybody could play in the Olympics. I will be asking the board to support it."

Graves’ predecessor Giles Clarke, who has made known his aversion to including cricket in the Olympics time and again and reiterated his stance even last month, was surprisingly named in an International Cricket Council (ICC) delegation, along with ICC CEO David Richardson, to hold discussions with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) next month to discuss the inclusion of cricket in the 2024 Olympic Games.

"I have every right to put my board's interests first," Clarke had said, indicating that the timing of the Olympics means England could find it hard to send their national team for the event.

Graves revealed that he would be having a meeting with Clarke to ensure that he leaves behind his personal choice and instead convey the ECB's decision.

"We are having a board meeting with the ECB before Giles Clarke has that meeting with the Olympic Committee, so Giles Clarke will know where the ECB board is coming from. It's not about personalities and what they think, it's about what the ECB board think," Graves said.

Graves also dismissed a report presented to the ICC executive board last year that had suggested that Olympics could cost the ECB $160 million.

"I haven't seen anything like that. What's been said in the past is the past. I'm looking forward, not looking back," he said. "I don't want to look back at the Giles Clarke regime - I'm looking at the Colin Graves regime. The way I do things, the way I run the board, the way I run the ECB is different and basically everything's on the table for discussion. Everything."

While the T20 format is the only realistic way of seeing cricket in the Olympics, Greaves is more intent on ensuring that the game makes an entry, one way or the other.

"I'm just saying cricket should be part the Olympics, whatever format that ends up as. I'm not saying T20 is the way to do it - I don't know. Somebody might come up with something entirely different - a 10-over competition, who knows? It's fitting it into the schedule and the grounds, wherever the Olympics are held," Graves said.