Graves throws weight behind Olympic bid

Colin Graves' declaration that "cricket should be an Olympic sport" marks the most distinct shift yet from his predecessor as ECB Chairman, Giles Clarke, who may yet be required to "do as he is told", as Mike Brearley memorably put it, when he meets the International Olympic Committee for talks next month.

"Everything's on the table for discussion," Graves said, making clear that he willrequest that the ECB board votes for cricket to be included in the Olympics when it meets next month.

"I think it should be an Olympic sport in one format or another," Graves said. "It's extending the sport throughout a number of countries. Associates, and everybody, could play in the Olympics. I will be asking the board to support it."

His comments go much further than the MCC World Cricket Committee's suggestion in July that Graves and Tom Harrison, the ECB chief executive, were open to a "rethink" of the board's attitude.

Graves's comments increase the likelihood of cricket being included in the 2024 Games, especially after Wally Edwards, the chairman of Cricket Australia, announced his support for the idea earlier this year.

This week the ICC board resolved to send a delegation to meet the International Olympic Committee next month. Alongside David Richardson, Clarke, intriguingly, will represent the ICC.

Ostensibly, the fact that Clarke was selected to meet the IOC suggested cricket's prospects of joining the Games remained dim. Clarke has long been an implacable opponent of cricket's inclusion in the Games, on the grounds that England could not fit the time into their schedule.

"I have every right to put my board's interests first," Clarke told Death of A Gentleman, the recent film investigating cricket's global governance, when asked whether opposing cricket's inclusion in the Olympics was to the detriment of the global game.

Yet now Graves has made it clear that if, as expected, the ECB board vote in favour of cricket's inclusion in the Olympics, Clarke will be expected to represent that new position.

"We are having a board meeting with the ECB before Giles Clarke has that meeting with the Olympic Committee, so Giles Clarke will know where the ECB board is coming from. It's not about personalities and what they think, it's about what the ECB board think," Graves said.

It seems that Brearley was right after all when he said after the MCC meeting in July that Clarke would have to "do what he is told" if the ECB supported cricket's inclusion in the Games, even though he subsequently apologised for the remarks.

While a report presented to the ICC executive board last year, with heavy input from Clarke, had argued that the Olympics could cost the ECB $160 million, Graves made clear he was not convinced by that figure.

"I haven't seen anything like that. What's been said in the past is the past. I'm looking forward, not looking back," he said.

"I don't want to look back at the Giles Clarke regime - I'm looking at the Colin Graves regime. The way I do things, the way I run the board, the way I run the ECB is different and basically everything's on the table for discussion. Everything."

"No" was Graves' emphatic response to being asked whether he envisaged a problem fitting in the Games with England's schedule (the report in 2013 said England could lose a full four-Test series because of the Olympics).

"I'm just saying cricket should be part the Olympics, whatever format that ends up as. I'm not saying T20 is the way to do it - I don't know. Somebody might come up with something entirely different - a 10-over competition, who knows? It's fitting it in to the schedule and the grounds, wherever the Olympics are held."

Olympic (and Paralympic) status would be particularly beneficial for women's and disability cricket, forms of the game in which the ECB has made a concerted effort in recent years; the women's Ashes this year received far more media coverage than in previous years. Were cricket to join the Games, it would help women's and disability cricket around the globe gain financial support and a higher profile.