Cricket in Bermuda, as in all the non-Test countries will be helped tremendously if Cricket were an Olympic sport.The possibilty of Olympic
Glory would bring the best athletes to the Game.Perhaps this is what WI ace batsman/former captain Ramanresh Sarwan and Captain Chris Gayle recognise when they told Cricket2012Games.com last Sunday at the Renaissance Hotel in Toronto:
"It would be great if cricket were a part of the 2012 Olympics in England." They also expressed a wish to play in the Olympics.
Are cricketers going to be on the sidelines for another Olympics, one in the birthplace of cricket England, watching great athletes like Bolt and Phelps get global attention? or is England going to accept the responsibility and find a place for cricket in 2012 ?

Bermuda are one of the most talented associate nations. They have some great young players, the sport is fairly popular in Bermuda, and I still think that Bermuda has a big future. But Gus Logie is perfectly within his right s to slam the team after the way they played in Canada over the last week. I don't think anyone expected them to beat the West Indies, but at least put up a fight, like Canada did. The national team in Bermuda are very soft, and have a very poor attitude to the game. I really hope this changes in time.

Lloyd, the host country has no power whatsoever to give a sport a place in the games, that is a matter for the IOC. It cannot even be a demonstration sport, as that concept was abolished in the 1990s. The list of sports for 2012 was finalised by the IOC in 2005. The ECB is supporting the addition of cricket to the games post 2016, but it will be in competition with many other sports, and it will need the support of a large majority of IOC members (two thirds of them if my memory serves me right), and the vast majority of them come from non-cricketing countries. So don't get your hopes up.

Simon, given Bermuda has a population of only 65000 people, the talent pool to select players for a national team is very small. It would be better for the development of the game globally if more populous associate countries like the UAE, Oman, Namibia, Nepal etc could take the step at the next world cup qualifier and qualify ahead of Bermuda.

Oliver

You say that cricket will need the support of two-thirds of the IOC countries, most of whom don't play cricket. That's true, but how many of them sent hockey teams to the Games? How many were represented in the pool? Not every country plays cricket, but not every country needs to in order to support it. You can easily get a couple dozen teams in to the Olympics, and hopefully that'll be enough.

Given Bermuda's continuing woes though in spite of far more funding on per person basis than probably any other associate and a good few test teams, it seems like Bermuda won't place in the top 6 in the World Cup Qualifier unless they really focus - that would probably put their Intercontinental Cup spot in jeopardy as well as their opportunities to play in the World Twenty20 via future World Twenty20 qualifiers among the top associates. And if having millions of dollars in total being gifted by Stanford, the ICC and Bermuda's own government (not to mention any of Bermuda's sponsors) isn't enough to get Bermuda's players to focus enough to really want to do well at any match/competition recently in any format I doubt that being able to qualify for the Olympics will make any difference with Bermuda. Bermuda's problem lies in the attitude and commitment of its players.