Bangladesh, the hosts for the 11th South Asian Games in 2008, hopes to include cricket in the event, according to reports.
“We have four test playing nations among us. So we could easily include the cricket in the SA Games,” Ishtiaq Ahmed, a senior official of the Bangladesh Olympic Association, told Reuters. “We understand it will be difficult for the test playing nations to send a full-strength side in the SA Games. In that case we would happily accept age-level teams.”
“India has already given its go-ahead,” he said. The organizers said they would discuss the proposals with the countries and the International Cricket Council to finalize the schedule.
Nepal along with seven other nations Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka participate in the biennial meeting and all of them play cricket in international fixtures.
The decision will be taken in Dhaka next February with Bangladesh proposing 15 disciplines including cricket for the meeting of the representatives from participating nations. It was not immediately clear what format of the game – the One-day or Twenty20 has been proposed for the event.
According to CricInfo, cricket was last included at a major international tournament in the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpar. It also featured in the Olympics once, when a side from Britain beat France in Paris in 1900.