Cricket now in Pan American Games
Wednesday 18 June was an historic day for the sport of cricket. It was the day the executive committee of Panam Sports, the continental association of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) took the decision to include cricket in the Pan American Games programme for 2027, which will be. Hosted in Lima, Peru.
Lima’s Anxiety
The decision of the Panam Sports executive last week, ended weeks of anxiety for the host city and its Organising Committee over the number of the sports it had proposed to Panam Sports for the Games, both when bidding and again after signing the Host City Contract, that would eventually be approved by the organisation’s executive.
Lima’s anxiety came about because of its eagerness to produce a most exciting edition of the Games, given that hosting in 2027 would be a second-time luck situation and there is much interest in showcasing to the Americas how much the first experience has prepared the city for an opportunity to do better.
Across Lima there has been a certain level of urgency to deliver perhaps the most exciting edition of the Pan American Games of all time.
It should be remembered that when the bid process for the host of the Pan American Games was reopened following the decision of the Panam Sports Executive to take the Games of 2027 from Barranquilla, Lima, Peru and Asuncion, Paraguay, were the two bidding cities. Both cities included the sport of cricket amongst their sports programme, on the understanding of the old principle that the Pan American Games should contain all of the sports approved by the IOC for inclusion on the Games programme of the pending Summer Olympics and LA28 has cricket in its sport listing.
But having met all the requirements as per its understanding of the Pan American Games regulations, Lima found some changes being considered by the Panam Sports executive and that it was not automatic that cricket was on the programme for the Games of 2027.
Wednesday’s decision therefore gave the Organising Committee for Lima2027 a great sigh of relief when cricket was included in the final approved programme. This means that the way is clear for Lima27 to commence work on the establishment of the appropriate facilities for the sport competition in particular, but also for the broader national development of the sport around all of Peru.
Cricket has been played in Peru for several decades and, like the different Caribbean countries, had a cricket club affiliated to the International Cricket Council (ICC) since the 1950s.
At present, Peru now has a national governing body for cricket, no longer just a club. This organisation has procured membership of the ICC and will soon be a member of the Peruvian Olympic Committee, where it will have responsibility for the organisation of the sport during the Pan American Games of 2027.
Peru’s efforts regarding the push for inclusion in the Games of 2027 has been fully supported by the Cricket West Indies (CWI) and the Caribbean Association of National Olympic Committees (CANOC). This alliance will continue to facilitate the broader development of the sport of Cricket across all of the Americas.
Cricket’s response
News of the inclusion of cricket in the Pan American Games in 2027 has been well received by the ICC and all its members across the globe.
The incredible upward mobility of the sport of cricket in the recent past has served as a critical catalyst for new adherents, associations and organisers of competitions.
Peru, with its strong commitment to the development of the sport across South America, has been seeking collaboration at several levels and with different agencies, and may well have ambitions to become the centre of the sport in Latin America. It is this ambition that has been the driving force behind the South American nation’s determination to succeed in getting the sport on the sport programme of the Pan American Games.
With the sport already being played in Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Panama, Mexico, Surinam and Peru, there is every likelihood that with its inclusion on the Olympic Games sport programme and that of the Pan American Games, we will see a further explosion of interest.
CWI is already at the forefront of the aforementioned developments and stand to be involved in the opening of opportunities for young athletes across the Americas.
CANOC is in discussions with Peru as it lays the foundation for the introduction of the sport and its growth and development.
The awareness process has started and will help re-shape how the sport is perceived in the future.
Opportunities abound
All Caribbean National Olympic Committees (NOC) are members of Panam Sports and have been well established amongst the medallists for decades.
In the past several months CANOC has been urging CWI to ensure that their respective member associations across the Caribbean approach their respective NOCs to become full members.
It is important that our NOCs of the Caribbean understand the importance of engaging with cricket and other sports that are growing rapidly and whose capacities to generate significant revenues could assist in bringing sport into national discussions on their nation’s respective economies.
We are at a stage where sporting organisations have to understand the industry in which they are involved and resist the temptation to satisfy themselves with trickle-down handouts.
For too long, sporting organisations have allowed themselves to entangle themselves in amateurism whilst idly ignoring global developments in the expansionism and multi-faceted nature of sport.
Admittedly, there have been challenges with the sport industry, but this is also the case in almost every sphere of economic pursuits.
With cricket in the Pan American Games and national federations being members of their respective NOCs, individual countries from around the Caribbean that play the sport competitively can look forward, much like their football counterparts, to contesting for places and medals at the quadrennial event. This can happen for some cricketers, as early as 2027, one year ahead of the Summer Olympics of LA28.
There is also the prospect of scholarships being awarded to universities in the USA and the Caribbean. This is an important area of development which Caribbean governments and sport organisations underplay in their ‘official’ commitment to sport and its practitioners.
The Caribbean can and must deliver a fit-for-purpose approach to sport development that will be of benefit to all of our countries through their economies.
It remains an unfortunate reality that at best, individual governments lay claim to the successes of the individual athlete and or representative team, oblivious of the impact it would have if such recognition were moved to the regional collective.
The lessons are not being learnt.
There is a debilitating aura that engulfs us.
We believe ourselves incapable of taking control of our lives and exert influence enough to rise to leadership beyond our patch of soil.
We envy those who have come out of the bowels of the region to excel at the global level, often belittling their efforts.
There is overwhelming evidence that individually, however independent any single Caribbean country believes itself to be, survival is a major problematic. This alone is reason to justify a collective, integrationist approach to Caribbean development. But the centuries of our existence continue to render countless examples of failures, largely of our own making that is rooted in the legacies of captivity, slavery, indentureship and colonialism.
We continue to struggle with the globally imposed and all too readily accepted, concepts of neo-colonialism, modernism and post modernism, whilst our people suffer under the yoke of the different models of oppression to which we allow them to be subjected.
Forward March
The success of cricket in respect of garnering support to get onto the Olympic sports programme of LA28 must be celebrated by all of us in this Caribbean geographical space.
Let us not dwell on why the regional team is not accepted in the Games but celebrate the overwhelming opportunities that are opening up to the region’s young people.
Each NOC must welcome cricket in its midst and collaborate to afford them every opportunity to positively impact the respective national sport programmes.
It is a grave mistake for NOCs to allow football to steer clear of their institutional framework because they have enough money to look after themselves. The latter approach defies the logic that should prevail if we are serious of having sport impact national development.
All sports should work together to facilitate a major contribution to genuine national development, once we are mindful that development is about people.
We can all make better use of our collective resources is we take the time to engage in the education of all of sport’s stakeholders.
It is not possible for our region, the Caribbean, to make meaningful progress if we continue to bury our heads in the sands of insularity. The history of such an approach is all around us, accounting in full for our lack of meaningful progress, individually and collectively. Cricket is just another sport that can be added to the list that, if wisely promoted and nurtured, will yield dividends for all of our peoples across the Caribbean.
