Tendulkar at rugby as IOC looks to woo India's sport

The sight of cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar in the stands at the Rio Games rugby on Saturday was a reminder that at least one major international sport remains outside the Olympic embrace.

Accompanied by International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach, India's greatest sporting icon watched the opening matches of a shortened version of a sport that has some parallels with his own.

Like rugby, the elite level of cricket is largely populated by a handful of former British colonies, and the game is widely perceived as unfathomable by many outside that heartland. Yet cricket has been slow to take up the chance to return to the Olympic fold.

With the return of golf and rugby at the Rio Games, and with baseball and softball to return at Tokyo 2020, cricket - and the Indian subcontinent that provides the majority of its most fervent fans - represents a final frontier for the IOC.

Barring a once-dominant hockey team and the odd shooting gold, India's 1.2 billion people have had little to shout about at the Olympics for many years. There are signs Bach's visit to the rugby with Tendulkar is part of IOC attempts to engage cricket.

On Thursday, Nita Ambani, an Indian businesswoman and owner of the Mumbai franchise in the popular Indian Premier League cricket competition, was elected to the IOC.

Brett Gosper, chief executive of World Rugby, whose sport returned to the Olympics for the first time in 92 years on Saturday, believes the potential benefits for cricket are clear.

"Sachin was here for a whole session, loved it, and was interested in rugby's journey to the Olympics and why that's an interesting prospect for cricket," he said. "If cricket has similar ambitions to rugby, which is to take its footprint out of its comfort zone, then there's nothing like the Olympics to allow you to do that."

The International Cricket Council has indicated that next year it will present a case for inclusion at the 2024 Olympics, most likely via the shorter Twenty20 format.

(China Daily 08/08/2016 page5)