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“My understanding is head office is still working through exactly what it means, so until we get specifics, that’s down the path for us,” selector on duty Tony Dodemaide said.
New Zealand’s cricketers are eager to make the most of the opportunity, having long resigned themselves to the prospect of facing the steep road to qualify from second spot in Oceania. “We always presumed that would be us,” said an NZ Cricket official.
The Olympics will also host a six-team women’s event, with Australia to contest the T20 World Cup in England later this year.
Missing qualification for the Olympics would be a disaster for the Australian men’s team, after years of advocacy by Cricket Australia for sport’s inclusion in the global sporting jamboree.
Steve Smith and Pat Cummins are among numerous Australian cricketers who have expressed a strong desire to be part of cricket’s Olympics return, more than a century after its sole appearance at the Games.
“My main goal is to get in the team when the Olympics is rolling around,” Smith said recently. “I’d be keen to do that. That’d be pretty cool. So, keep doing what I’m doing and you never know.”
Smith’s place at the tournament has been a matter of conjecture, after he was called up as a standby player and then added to the full squad in time for the critical game against Sri Lanka in Kandy, only to be left out once more. Dodemaide said that the selectors still considered him primarily a back-up opener in T20 cricket.
As far back as 2007, CA commissioned a report examining the value for cricket in the Olympics in T20 format, with the aim of getting it in by 2020.
Opposition from England and India was ultimately turned around for cricket’s inclusion to be green-lit for LA. It will then be played in Brisbane in 2032, while India remains a chance to host the Games in 2036.
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“Those of us who spent 20 years against the odds getting cricket back into the Olympic program for the first time in over a century would regard it as mismanagement of epic proportions for Australia to fail to qualify for the world’s largest sports event in global sport’s biggest market,” said Phillip Pope, author of the 2007 CA report.
Australia’s failed campaign will end with a game against Oman – also already eliminated from the tournament – in the early hours of Saturday.
“We’re disappointed with the way the tournament has rolled out, but we will take some time once we finish our last commitment,” Dodemaide said. “We want to win every World Cup, no matter where it is.”
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