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Plans to deploy men’s and women’s Team GB cricket teams in the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles have been discussed by the ECB and Cricket Scotland.
With cricket’s inclusion secured late last year, the sport will compete in the Olympics for the first time since 1900. The ICC has suggested six-team T20 tournaments for both the women’s and men’s competitions; details are still pending, but both are anticipated to span approximately a week and will probably be played consecutively rather than simultaneously.
Although the specifics of the qualification process are still pending, the T20I rankings published by the ICC will be utilised. The majority of nations will compete under their regular identities, but if England makes it, they’ll play as Great Britain in keeping with the Olympic tradition. It makes it possible for some Scottish players—like Sarah and Kathryn Bryce or Brandon McMullen—to compete.
Preliminary negotiations have been place between Cricket Scotland and the ECB regarding collaboration on possible Team GB cricket teams. Cricket Scotland is eager to provide players and staff and is pressing for active engagement in their operations; nonetheless, the ECB will be the teams’ designated governing body.
“With the Los Angeles Olympics four years away, it’s very early stages, but we’re talking to Team GB and Cricket Scotland about the next steps we need to take,” an ECB spokesperson told ESPNcricinfo.
“Once again Great Britain’s Olympians have captured the national imagination with their exploits in Paris this year, and we look forward to working together to compete when cricket returns to the Olympic stage in 2028.
“Along with England and Wales hosting Women’s and Men’s [T20] World Cups in 2026 and 2030, it’s another great opportunity to grow the game and inspire more people to develop a love for cricket.”
Andy Anson, the chief executive of the British Olympic Association, said on Monday: “We’ve got good experience in golf, in rugby and in women’s football, of how the Four Nations [England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland] can come together and nominate one country to be the main governing body and work with the other countries. So I think cricket will be the same.”
Anson, who is also Lancashire’s chairman, added: “The ECB will be at the centre of that. They’ll have to work with Cricket Scotland to make sure that happens properly. We will help them sign agreements to come together and create a single national governing body, as we have done in those other sports. We are working very closely with the ECB to make them become the fully fledged National Olympic Committee member.”
It is not yet known where the cricket competitions at the 2028 Olympics will take place. Major League Cricket and the Los Angeles Knight Riders intend to construct a stadium in Irvine’s Great Park, and the Oakland Coliseum has also been mentioned as a potential location.
Involvement in the Olympics, which are scheduled for the second half of July, will add to England’s men’s already extremely hectic summer of 2028, which already includes six Test matches and white-ball visits from Australia and India.