Ricky Ponting: Has Olympic T20 vision

Australia former skipper and all-time great batsman Ricky Ponting has given his support during the MCC World Cricket Committee meeting that T20 International cricket to be included in an Olympic sport.

The MCC World Cricket Committee was held at Lord’s on 13^th and 14^th July, during the course of meeting one of the major discussion was whether cricket should become the part of an Olympic sport or not.

Another major decision that the committee felt to be important was regarding having a 12-team tournament for the next World Cup in 2019.

Meanwhile Committee felt that making cricket an Olympic sport will surely increase the game popularity across the world. England one of the major cricket nations is in favour of sport joining the Olympics.

Ponting, told reporters at Lord’s on Tuesday: “It was quite unanimous throughout the members of this committee that we should look to grow the game into an Olympic sport.

“The opportunity to open up different markets, considering the Olympics is the pinnacle of global sport, to be able to get cricket into something like that would be an awesome spectacle in itself,” he added.

“It would be great for the growth and development of cricket, obviously talking about T20 cricket here.”

Ponting continued: “There were a number of things that were tossed around, whether, like with football, make it an Under-23 tournament. The whole discussion round cricket being in the Olympics was very positive”.

“That’s one way of breaking into some of these markets and attracting new audiences into the game, which I think the game needs right now”.