Pakistan's participation in doubt as LA28 Olympics to feature top six T20I teams

Pakistan's participation in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics has cast doubt as only the top six teams in the ICC T20I rankings are expected to qualify for the cricket competition, which is making a historic return to the Olympic Games after more than a century.

T20 cricket is one of five new sports added to the LA28 program and will feature six-team competitions in both the men’s and women’s categories.

Each team will field a 15-member squad, with 90 athlete slots allocated per gender. The official qualification pathway, however, has yet to be finalized.

One significant uncertainty is whether the USA, as the host nation, will receive direct qualification. If so, that would reduce the number of available spots for other nations. 

Another complication surrounds the representation of the West Indies, since Caribbean nations compete separately at the Olympics, unlike ICC events where they play as a combined team.

At the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, where women's T20 cricket was featured, Barbados represented the West Indies. This decision was based on Barbados winning the regional Twenty20 Blaze tournament at the time.

Cricket’s return to the Olympics—following its lone appearance in Paris in 1900—was confirmed in October 2023 during an International Olympic Committee (IOC) session in Mumbai. 

At that point, it was also proposed that all team sports at LA28 would feature only six teams per category, a plan that has now been officially confirmed.

In its proposal, the International Cricket Council (ICC) recommended that the six participating teams be determined based on the T20I rankings at a specified cut-off date. 

While the final decision on the qualification process is pending, it is expected to be announced later this year.

As of now, the top six teams in the ICC T20I rankings are India, Australia, England, New Zealand, West Indies, and South Africa. This places Pakistan—winners of the 2009 T20 World Cup—outside the qualification bracket, as they currently sit in seventh position.

Addressing the host nation's participation, IOC sports director Kit McConnell said in October 2023, "Normally, the host country is one of the teams in the team sports, and then we look at a balance of global strength and regional representation and try and find that balance within the available quota as well."