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They need to implement these new rules very quickly and without wasting any time because it's very important for them otherwise this is going to be worst for ICC and cricket we already have the good number of cricket playing nations in Associate class, and they can do some better in near future in short format which can bring more revenue and fans community but with teams like these UAE, Oman and Kuwait its never been good idea.
If they want to go into ICC then it must case for them otherwise they will ignore this application which is not good at the moment now recently Gulf is having very good hold on ICC but still it's achievable because ICC is not for just big 3 threes or anyone community here we have nearly the biggest community is sports which want better and solid policies for better results.
You are right. If ICC wants to get into the Olympics and maintain a good reputation for cricket, they need to take the necessary steps as soon as possible. They need to bring in more teams, not only that, prepare them for the upcoming Olympics so that they can stage a good show and thus, bring revenue and more fans towards cricket. As it cant be done overnight and is a lengthy process, I think ICC still has enough time to work on it.
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I think if ICC wants Cricket to be in Olympics, it has to ensure cricket spreads across Europe or the Americas, currently, cricket-playing nations are too skewed, 85% of them are from Asia & the African continent, only a few from here and there. The problem with popularising any sport per se is the viewership, cricket is a commercial sport unlike most Olympic sport, which means you need a good viewership for cricket in a country to make it a cricketing nation, but the problem is most of the countries don't even understand cricket, how in the world then you can popularise cricket there? One way is player migrations and the second better approach is to hold local cricket events in these countries, just like the couple of matches that happened in the US in form of a veteran league.
I have seen some scores of European countries playing cricket where they scored 10, 12 runs in 20 overs, and the other team won in 5 balls. What I'm trying to say is, cricket is still not very known to people in the Europe or Americas. ICC needs to work hard to get them to know cricket, like cricket, and thus bring them to cricket and make them play. Is it impossible? Probably not but it will be a lengthy process. But in this era of social media, advertising and marketing is not very hard task. So in order to include cricket in the Olympics, ICC has got some big tasks to manage.