LA28 cricket competition to begin two days ahead of opening ceremony

Cricket’s highly anticipated return to the Olympics at Los Angeles (LA) 2028 will get underway on July 12, two days ahead of the Games' opening ceremony, scheduled to be held on July 14.

According to the organisers, the cricket competition will run from July 12 to 29, 2028, with July 19 and July 29 marked for the medal matches.

Since the Games are set to kick off prematurely on July 14, the organisers have labelled the early dates as ‘Minus 1’ and ‘Minus 2’.

The competition will be held in two phases, with the first set of matches to be played from July 12 to 18, followed by the medal matches on July 19.

The second phase will be held from July 22 to 28, with the final day scheduled on July 29.

With the sequence of the competitions yet to be announced, the organisers shared that the more detailed schedule, including medal events and gender order will be unveiled later this month.

“The gender sequence for events in the 2028 Games is not yet available. As stated in today's release, 'A more detailed schedule with medal events and gender order will be released later this year,'" LA28 said.

For the unversed, the cricket competition will feature six teams in both the men’s and women’s categories. Each team will field a 15-member squad, with 90 athlete slots allocated per gender.

While the final decision on the qualification process is pending, it is expected that the six participating teams will be determined based on the T20I rankings at a specified cut-off date.

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.