Commonwealth Video games: T20 cricket proposed as core sport; athletics, swimming obligatory

The 2026 version of the Commonwealth Video games will herald a brand new period within the historical past of the Video games, with athletics and swimming being the one obligatory sports activities. In the meantime, cricket and basketball function in a ‘core checklist’ for the distinguished Video games.

The transfer to have solely two obligatory sports activities is a part of a “strategic roadmap” which permits host cities larger freedom to incorporate disciplines of their alternative from a core checklist which additionally options cricket and basketball.

The roadmap was permitted on the Commonwealth Video games Federation’s (CGF) Basic Meeting, held just about.

Coupled with a robust proposition for potential hosts, the roadmap will enable a extra sustainable long-term agenda, with elevated consciousness of how sport and tradition can positively influence communities.

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The brand new additions to the core disciplines which have beforehand been listed as non-compulsory sports activities are T20 cricket, seaside volleyball and 3×3 basketball. Different disciplines within the 15-strong core checklist embrace badminton, taking pictures, desk tennis, freestyle wrestling and hockey, amongst others.

Cricket in Commonwealth Video games

Cricket was final performed on the Commonwealth Video games in 1998 by which South Africa gained the gold medal. Second string groups and under-prepared pitches have been the discuss of the city in the course of the 1998 version.

Nevertheless, the 2022 Birmingham edition will feature a T20 version of cricket with eight ladies’s groups set to compete. Within the 2022 version, taking pictures has been dropped.

The Indian ladies’s cricket group have certified for the 2022 Commonwealth Video games, becoming a member of hosts England, Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan and South Africa.

The CGF advisable that roughly 15 sports activities be featured on the Commonwealth Video games.

CGF President Dame Louise Martin, in an announcement, stated there was a necessity for the Commonwealth Video games to be modern, adaptive and modernized to be related. She stated:

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“Our Video games must adapt, evolve and modernize to make sure we proceed to take care of our relevance and status throughout the Commonwealth. Our subsequent step is to work intently with our Worldwide Federation companions to make sure they’ll contribute to the imaginative and prescient and path of the roadmap with a view to underpin the way forward for the Video games.”

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