New York is likely to host cricket matches in the Los Angeles (LA) 2028 Olympics. The sport will return to the Summer Olympics after 128 years, since last making an appearance in the 1900 edition.
The key reason for the change in the host city is for the games to take place in convenient hours for the Indian fans, who usually form a major chunk of the live-streaming audiences. Moreover, the sponsors and broadcasters will also be interested in supporting the event, if they have a large customer base who will be interested in watching the games.
The time difference between Los Angeles and India is 12 hours and 30 minutes. If a night game in LA starts at around 8 PM, the game would be broadcasted in the Indian subcontinent in the early morning hours. Meanwhile, the difference between New York and India is nine and a half hours, which makes it better for the Indian viewers to hop on the cricketing action.
The matches taking place from 11 AM in New York would then be broadcasted in India from around 8 PM. The same time frame was followed by the International Cricket Council in the 2024 T20 World Cup as well. When asked about New York as the likely alternative venue, Casey Wasserman, head of LA28, told Cricbuzz:
“We’re still working through the specifics.”
The 2024 T20 World Cup was a successful event conducted by the ICC in the USA and the West Indies. Apart from New York, Dallas, Texas, and Fort Lauderdale, Florida were the venues which hosted the games among the American cities.
Interestingly, the New York facility which hosted the games during the showpiece event was dismantled after the final game. The discussions have been underway regarding hosting cricket in the LA 2028 Olympics. It will be interesting to see which city in the States would host cricket games.
Cricket scrapped from 2026 Commonwealth Games schedule
As per the latest reports, cricket has been removed from the 2026 Commonwealth Games, set to be held in Glasgow. It is primarily due to budgetary issues, and to reduce the cost of hosting and limiting carbon footprint.
Originally, Victoria was set to host the CWG, but pulled out due to rising costs. Now, Glasgow organizers and the Olympics committee have also taken a bold step to exclude cricket, badminton, hockey, squash, table tennis and wrestling from the schedule.
Here’s what CWG Federation CEO Katie Sadleir said in her statement:
“The 2026 Games will be a bridge to the Commonwealth Games of tomorrow – an exciting first step in our journey to reset and redefine the Games as a truly collaborative, flexible and sustainable model for the future that minimizes costs, reduces the environmental footprint, and enhances social impact – in doing so increasing the scope of countries capable of hosting.”
The last edition of CWG in 2022 took place in Birmingham and saw cricket return after 24 years. The Australian team secured a title victory after beating India by nine runs.
