Fixture challenge to cricket's T20 Olympic dream

TWENTY20 at the 2020 Olympic Games may be a marketer's dream, but the game's powerbrokers were yesterday struggling with the vexing issue of trying to slot yet another tournament - albeit a massive one - into their already hectic schedule.

Long seen as the ultimate stage for exposure, the Olympics have been much coveted by elements within the International Cricket Council and Cricket Australia. They received formal approval from the International Olympic Committee to bid for participation in the 2020 Games yesterday, but must now wrestle with a program already under heavy strain.

ICC chief executive Haroon Lorgat conceded his biggest challenge would be to convince board members - most notably those from India - to abandon revenue-generating tournaments and series so every nation could compete at the Olympics. The Indian board has, in the past, been reluctant to turn over its highly valued players to its national Olympic body for the duration of the Games.

''Currently within cricket, scheduling is a big, big challenge,'' Lorgat told The Age . ''We have got an enormous amount of cricket to organise and play. Scheduling will be a major factor in our decision.

''The Olympics is quite spectacular, a major global sporting event. It is something we will be looking at, the kinds of implication of participation in the Olympic Games.

''We didn't want to get too far ahead of ourselves, so we have been waiting to get approval from the IOC, that was the first step.''

With the Indian Premier League looking to expand and the Champions League set to grow, the all-powerful Indian board will need more convincing than ever. However, administrators could yet be swayed by the value of staging cricket in front of one of the world's largest television audiences.

Cricket's vision to become truly global largely rests with its ability to appeal to US and Chinese television markets.

The US is already cricket's second biggest television audience behind India, but China will take more convincing and the Games may be the answer.

Already plans are under way to stage an Indian Premier League series in the US, but China's enormous population means only a small percentage of their viewership would see cricket's earning potential skyrocket.

The IOC, meeting in Vancouver, also said it would recognise the federations of sport climbing and power boating.

''They are recognised federations by us, which now means that they can take part in IOC events,'' said IOC director of communications Mark Adams, adding it could be seen as a first step towards becoming Olympic sports.

Cricket was part of the 1900 Olympics in Paris and has not appeared since, but it is set to feature at this year's Asian Games in Guangzhou, China, and was in the Commonwealth Games as recently as 1998.

■Afghanistan has beat the United States to top its group and join Ireland, the Netherlands and the United Arab Emirates in the last four of the ICC World Twenty20 qualifiers.

In the final group games on Thursday, Afghanistan defeated the US by 29 runs in Dubai, its third win in a row, while host UAE romped to a 42-run win over a hapless Canada in Abu Dhabi. In the day's other matches joint title holder Ireland defeated Scotland by 37 runs in Dubai while the Netherlands routed Kenya by seven wickets in Abu Dhabi.

The results put Afghanistan, mainly made up of Afghans brought up in refugee camps in Pakistan, on top of group A, allowing them to carry forward two points into the Super Four stage to be played in Dubai on Friday and Saturday.

As top of the other group, the UAE also take two bonus points into the final round. Top seed Ireland and second-seed the Netherlands, both expected to progress to the world finals in the West Indies from April 30-May 16, will start the final stage on zero points.

Against the US, Afghan bowlers put up a disciplined performance backed up by some smart fielding that allowed the Asian side to defend a 136-run target as the Americans finished at 7-106.

Friday's Super Four stage program in Dubai sees Afghanistan take on the Netherlands and UAE facing Ireland.

■ The ICC has formally approved ANZ Stadium as an international venue, allowing Cricket Australia to transfer some one-day games from the Sydney Cricket Ground to the Homebush stadium.