Cricket ponders Olympic declaration

When veteran Chinese leader Zhou Enlai was asked in the early 1970s what he thought of the impact of the French Revolution of 1789, he replied: "It is too early to say."

How much harder then to speculate on the future.

And when it came to cricket's possible inclusion as an Olympic sport, International Cricket Council (ICC) president David Morgan, in Beijing for the ongoing Games, weighed his words with a care that would have appealed to both Zhou and the opening batsman deciding on what to play and what to leave.

It is not so much too early as too easy to say that while Adam Gilchrist is in favour of Twenty20 cricket, the shortest international form of the game, becoming an Olympic sport and Ian Chappell is very much against, Morgan is very much sat on the fence.

Unlike the two Australians, Morgan leads a large multi-national organisation which finds it difficult to make decisions without the consent of its most powerful members, who do not always see eye-to-eye.

Add in the fact that the earliest likely date for the return of cricket, which did feature in the 1900 Games, to the Olympics is 2020 and Morgan's caution is all the more understandable.