We’re big advocates of playing in the Olympics: Cricket West Indies CEO Jonny Grave

Speaking about his grand schemes to popularize cricket in all parts of the world, Cricket West Indies CEO Jonny Grave said that West Indies cricket is a big advocate of playing in the Olympics. He also admitted that the cricket board is well aware of the fact that if cricket is represented in Olympics they would be playing as separate sovereign countries of the West Indies, but they don’t have any problem with it.

Jonny Grave was speaking with an online cricket website and he explained his efforts for growing the game. He said that their strategic plan is to play a minimum of two international T20 games in North America till 2022 and this is done to bring regular games into the Americas.

For the next year, Grave said that they are planning to play India in Florida in July soon after the world cup. According to Grave, they are looking at these games as prime-time affairs to ensure that they accommodate Indian television market and the comfort of people coming to the stadium.

The talks of drafting cricket in the Olympics have been going on for a while but till date, there is no concrete movement. The ICC admits that representation in Olympics will skyrocket cricket’s popularity across the globe but it is also worried about the fact that an Olympic event might come at a cost of an ICC tournament such as world T20 which is currently the apex body’s major source of revenue.

The cricketing world is divided on this topic as some cricket boards do not want ICC to lose out on its primary source of revenue for accommodating the Olympic event. Several administrators and former players have tried to create a solution but nothing has become evident so far.

Under such circumstances, Grave’s comments about the Olympics indicate that this idea is now gaining more supporters.