Something that has not been taken account off when putting up the Olympic games in London is the effect on the rest of the sporting calendar particular during  either side of the Olympic games itself. As a result of the 16 days of sporting festival around the games, we lose to all intents and purposes the cricket in the UK through almost the whole of July and first two weeks of August.  Normally this period would be the peak of the cricket season and is illustrated well in the MCC notice of the schedule of matches at Lords, where we have a gapping hole for almost a six week gap accounted for by the London 2012 Olympic Games period. I am also pretty certain we have the same at the Oval as well in London.

 

Do we have anything to compensate for this? While we have the archery at Lords during the Olympic period, that is nothing really to make up for the six week gap and you only have to ask the members of the MCC to find out what people think of that offer!

 

I tried in vain to persuade Seb Coe to incorporate Twenty20 cricket into the London 2012 games with a campaign called Twenty20 cricket for 2012 with the support of the London Assembly. As host cities are able to propose “one-off” adoption of particular sports from their shores.  This form of cricket has its particular appeal and would have fitted into the Olympics format very easily. This when we had all the facilities at both Lords and Oval readily available in London at no additional cost lying idle for six weeks. Seb Coe has not seen fit to pursue this at all and its clear he has not acknowledged the cost the game of cricket in the UK is making towards a successful Olympics games this summer.