The document, titled Cricket Within The Olympic Program – A Golden Opportunity for the Development of Cricket and the Olympic Movement was compiled by Philip Pope, a former CA public affairs manager who was previously chief press attache to the Great Britain Olympic team at two Olympics and once led the PR for London's Olympic bid project. ICC officials are considering an attempt to get twenty20 cricket into the 2024 Olympics after opting against trying for Rio back in 2008. Credit:Getty Images The paper, presented at an ICC chief executives and board meeting in July 2008 by CA chief executive James Sutherland and then chairman Creagh O'Connor, detailed the enormous benefits for cricket's Olympic inclusion as well as outlining the desire of the International Olympic Committee to harness the attention of the subcontinent, where more than 20 per cent of the world's population live. Senior IOC members were canvassed in the preparation of the report and discussions were believed to have reached the point where playing conditions were spoken about – a drop-in pitch in the host city's Olympic stadium in the week before the athletics began was the favoured option.

Pope, now general manager of communications at Super Rugby team Queensland Reds, reported in the CA paper that he had been told by an IOC apparatchik in May 2008 that: "The deals that were done with the Asian Broadcast Union (ABU) in the last cycle were pitiful. Within those deals India is currently valued at a paltry level – they are currently worth next to nothing. India is in their [IOC marketing department] thinking. India has been less of a target ahead of 2008 because of China. In the future the IOC will need full value for the Olympic signal in India." The document also noted that "the opportunity for women to compete at the Olympic Games could be the platform that transforms the women's game over the next century". Key to success: The womens game would receive a huge boost if featured in the Olympics. Credit:Getty Images However, the proposal fell on deaf ears at the ICC top table in the midst of discussion about Zimbabwe and Robert Mugabe. England are said to have objected because the Olympics could harm their television contract with Sky TV because of its incursion on the home summer as well as having concerns about the concept of having to play as Great Britain.

India's board, meanwhile, were reportedly opposed to handing over control of the team to the Indian Olympic Association during the Olympic period while there was consternation from the ICC about the West Indies being broken up to compete as separate Caribbean island nations. Pope's report had concluded that: "The only possible commercial downside of cricket's inclusion in the Olympic programme is the need to create a 17-day window in the FTP [Future Tours Programme], once every four years. Although little cricket is played head-to- head with the Olympic Games currently, an upper limit on this cost to global cricket is $US12 million. "This cost would be well and truly offset by the benefits Olympic inclusion could create: Direct funding of between $US7 million – 28.5 million from the IOC's distribution to international federations part of the Olympic programme; global TV rights uplift; and national government funding of cricket as an Olympic sport." Cricket had technically missed the cut-off date to be part of the 2009 vote on new sports in Rio by the time the paper was brought to the ICC but senior figures in the game privately reported a willingness from the IOC to show flexibility on the deadline if they had acted quickly. They didn't, while rugby seized its opportunity and is set to make a splash, with Australia's women the favourites for gold.

Eight years later there is a strong appetite for T20's Olympic inclusion at the ICC. The concept of bidding for a spot at the 2024 Games was discussed at the ICC annual conference in Edinburgh in June and July. "The majority of ICC members believe that if cricket was at the Olympics it could do wonders for globalising the game," ICC chief executive Dave Richardson said last month. "Sure, the World Twenty20 gets a lot of viewers around the world but it attracts current cricket fans. If you want to really globalise the game – USA, China, Europe – then we have to be at the Olympics."