No cricket field? Try a beach, says CA chief

Cricket Australia occasionally do things from left field - day-night Tests, for example - but on this occasion they left the field entirely. Chief executive James Sutherland on Friday declared that beach cricket at the Olympics was not a silly idea, due to the lack of cricket fields available in some parts of the world where the Olympics may be held.

Cricket administrators have often been either lukewarm about the sport's potential involvement at the Olympics or, in the case of Giles Clarke, implacably opposed to it altogether. But Cricket Australia is supportive, and in a radio interview with ABC Grandstand on Friday, Sutherland was asked if Twenty20 was the form most likely to be seen at the Olympics in future.

"I think so but cricket on a traditional field will be a challenge in some parts of the world," Sutherland said. "There are other ways in which it can be played. Beach cricket is not a silly idea, nor is indoor cricket. All of those things are perhaps in some ways more practical and achievable than big cricket fields like we're on now."

Beach volleyball is one thing, but beach cricket? Perhaps indoor cricket is Sutherland's preference of the two ideas he floated. It would be a guaranteed gold medal for Australia, who have won all nine Men's Indoor Cricket World Cups and all eight Women's Indoor Cricket World Cups that have ever been contested.