Mumbai: At the just concluded 2024 Olympic Games, Pakistan was 62nd in the medals tally, India nine places down at 71st -- that’s the difference a gold medal can make. India finished with a haul of six medals and Pakistan just one but not winning a gold medal hurt.

It underlined how getting a gold at Olympics remains the toughest challenge in sports for countries like India. Unable to come close in track & field (with the exception of Neeraj Chopra) and swimming, India’s gameplan has been to identify specific events where their sportspersons stand a chance of being competitive with the best and then provide them with the best of facilities.

Despite the Indian government’s heavy push towards making a mark at the quadrennial event, realistically they were relying only on a handful of events in the quest for gold. Apart from shooting, badminton doubles, wrestling, India’s best hope was in the javelin throw but Neeraj Chopra was unable to repeat his Tokyo showing.

When the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports’ brain trust gets together to pencil down potential gold medal hopes for 2028 Los Angeles, the cricket team will surely be on the list of genuine gold medal contenders.

Added to the Games for the first time since 1900, anything less than the winner’s medal will be considered as an under achievement for the Indian cricket team simply because that’s the expectation one carries when you are backed by the richest association in the sport. Four years down the line, the current team would have changed quite a bit but India has no shortage of talent in T20 cricket owing to platform provided by the world’s top domestic league – Indian Premier League.

Also, it does matter that India won the World Cup when it was held for the first time in the United States, as co-hosts, earlier this year. In a sport where conditions matter a lot, the men in blue showed they can adapt to them in that part of the world, winning all their group league games in New York; they have been playing in Florida for some time now as well.

Challenge for the coach

Winning the World Cup was Rahul Dravid’s challenge, if new coach Gautam Gambhir wishes to stay that long, he can make getting the gold at Olympics his mission as India coach.

The way the teams performed under previous coaches Ravi Shastri and Dravid, their successors (Gambhir or the coach who succeeds him) don’t have a clear-cut challenge except maintaining the level of performance. During Shastri and Dravid’s time, the team has gone on to win almost every trophy or bilateral series that was there was to win, dominating the ODI World Cup and winning the T20 World Cup, apart from being back-to-back finalists in the World Test Championship, even conquering a new frontier in Australia with back-to-back Test series wins Down Under. Even the players need a new goal. It can also be said that the Olympic challenge comes at the right time for the Indian men’s team.

So far, the BCCI has not been sending full strength squads for multisport competitions like Asian Games and Commonwealth Games, but you can bet they will for the Olympic Games. It’s not just about the money.

It can be argued that many times, you don’t get to see the best basketballers, football players and tennis stars at the Games too. But cricket’s position is different. Basketball, football and tennis are a regular part of the Olympics, cricket has been added for the first time since 1900, and may not necessarily continue to be part of it in the future editions when held outside cricket playing countries.

The ICC members are aware this is cricket’s big chance. It will be the ideal platform to market the sport to the global audience. Cricket is hugely popular in countries like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, England and Australia, but has yet to make much of an impact in other parts of the world. Olympics is a competition where newer audience gets logged in just out of curiosity to track a medal event.

Speaking on The ICC Review, Ricky Ponting highlighted the potential for cricket to expand globally, especially United States.

“The thing about the Olympic Games, it’s not (about) the host nation. It’s about the audience that it opens up. The Olympic Games being viewed by so many people all around the world, it just opens up completely different audiences to our game that’s seemingly growing on a daily basis anyway. It can only be a real positive thing for the game.” Ponting said.

Cricket’s big chance

As always, India will be the biggest draw, both their men’s and women’s teams. The women’s team is also going from strength-to-strength and if they can master the conditions, they will be among the favourites along with Australia and England.

Indian women’s cricket team batter Jemimah Rodrigues expressed her excitement about representing the country at the Los Angeles. In a post on Instagram, Jemimah wrote, “Loved wearing the current Indian Olympic jersey. Can’t wait to play cricket for India at the Olympics soon! Man, what a feeling that’d be.”

As for the super stars of the men’s game, while the money will not be even close to what they earn in the IPL, the platform will be much bigger that any they have been part of. The interest levels in the Paris Games could be seen during the last fortnight. With India’s cricket team playing you can imagine the eyeballs that will attract and if nothing else, it will only lift the game’s brand even higher.

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