Lahore, Aug 6 (UNI) Favouring the growing group of players who have supported former Australian cricketer Adam Gilchrist's push for cricket to be part of the 2020 Olympics, Pakistan's present and former skippers Shoaib Malik and Younis Khan has said with the advent of twenty20, the sport could easily fit into the Games' schedule.
Gilchrist raised the idea on Monday and since then a series of big names, including Kumar Sangakkara, Sourav Ganguly and Stephen Fleming, have climbed on board.
The International Cricket Council is targeting a place in the 2012 Olympics or 2016 with the twenty20 version.
''We are all professional cricketers and I for one would really like to take part in the Olympics which are the biggest global sporting event,'' Malik said yesterday.
''It would be great to go to the Olympics and play cricket.
The length of a match is a factor which has dissuaded the organisers from considering cricket as a Olympic sport but with twenty20 cricket coming into play things have changed,'' Malik stated.
He said the ICC and the International Olympic Committee should find a way to include cricket in the Olympic games.
Younis said cricket was one of the top-five sports in the world and should be part of the Olympic Games.
''Other team games are played in the Olympics so why not cricket. I am not concerned what type of cricket makes it to the Olympics... be it over 10 over version, 20 overs version or 50-50 but it must be there,'' Younis said.
UNI XC CS/CS1047