Cricket may make it to 2010 Games

New Delhi: The inclusion of cricket as an official event in the 2010 Commonwealth Games is still open to speculation.

"The ICC (International Cricket Council) wants cricket to be part of the Commonwealth Games but it is for the BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) to decide," Suresh Kalmadi, President of the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) and Chairman of the 2010 Commonwealth Games Organising Committee, said on Friday.

He said the Games organising committee had proposed to the BCCI to have Twenty20, the new super-short version of the game, to be included in the 2010 event.

"But at that time the BCCI was against this version of cricket," Kalmadi said.

The BCCI has since reversed its position and has recognised Twenty20 as a new official version of the game.

The new version has each side playing 20 overs and a match lasts around three hours. Speed is the essence of this version and power batting the highlight.

First introduced in England in 2003 as a domestic event in another move to popularise cricket, Twenty20 has since gained popularity in other cricketing nations, with New Zealand, Australia, West Indies, South Africa, Pakistan and Sri Lanka holding their own domestic tournaments.

The only exception has been India, where cricket is equivalent to football in Brazil in terms of popularity.

Now, with the BCCI, the world's richest cricket body, accepting Twenty20 as another version of the game, efforts are on to have a Twenty20 World Cup as early as September 2007.

Coming to the Commonwealth Games, Kalmadi said it was still possible to have cricket in the New Delhi event.

"We had secured permission to hold as many as 20 events, and right now we have 18 events listed," he said.

The IOA president said while 15 events have officially been approved, three events - archery, tennis and billiards and snooker (taken together) - are awaiting the official nod.

"We expect the approval for these three sports by November this year."

That still leaves the Games organising committee the freedom of selecting two more sports to include in the 71-nation event.

"Technically, it is still possible to include cricket in the 2010 Commonwealth Games," Kalmadi said.

"But it is for the BCCI to get back to us."