The ECB and Cricket Scotland have opened talks about plans to discipline males’s and ladies’s Staff GB cricket groups on the 2028 Olympic Video games in Los Angeles.
Qualification particulars are additionally but to be confirmed however the ICC’s T20I rankings shall be utilized in some capability. Most nations will compete of their common guise but when England qualify then they may play as Nice Britain, consistent with the remainder of the Olympics. It opens up the potential for some Scottish gamers competing, comparable to Brandon McMullen or Sarah and Kathryn Bryce.
The ECB and Cricket Scotland have held preliminary discussions about working collectively on proposed Staff GB cricket groups. Cricket Scotland are pushing for energetic involvement of their operating and are eager to contribute gamers and workers, however the ECB would be the groups’ nominated governing physique.
“With the Los Angeles Olympics 4 years away, it is very early phases, however we’re speaking to Staff GB and Cricket Scotland concerning the subsequent steps we have to take,” an ECB spokesperson advised ESPNcricinfo.
“As soon as once more Nice Britain’s Olympians have captured the nationwide creativeness with their exploits in Paris this yr, and we stay up for working collectively to compete when cricket returns to the Olympic stage in 2028.
“Together with England and Wales internet hosting Girls’s and Males’s [T20] World Cups in 2026 and 2030, it is one other nice alternative to develop the sport and encourage extra individuals to develop a love for cricket.”
Andy Anson, the chief government of the British Olympic Affiliation, stated on Monday: “We have good expertise in golf, in rugby and in ladies’s soccer, of how the 4 Nations [England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland] can come collectively and nominate one nation to be the principle governing physique and work with the opposite nations. So I feel cricket would be the similar.”
Anson, who can also be Lancashire’s chairman, added: “The ECB shall be on the centre of that. They will must work with Cricket Scotland to make it possible for occurs correctly. We’ll assist them signal agreements to return collectively and create a single nationwide governing physique, as we’ve got completed in these different sports activities. We’re working very intently with the ECB to make them turn into the totally fledged Nationwide Olympic Committee member.”
Staff GB is formally the Nice Britain and Northern Eire Olympic Staff, and athletes from Northern Eire can select to compete for both Staff GB or Eire. However since cricket is organised on an all-Eire foundation, main Northern Irish cricketers comparable to Mark Adair and Paul Stirling are extremely unlikely to appoint themselves for Staff GB.
Involvement within the Olympics – which can happen within the second half of July – will add to an extremely busy 2028 summer time for England’s males, which is already as a consequence of characteristic six Exams and white-ball excursions from Australia and India.
