Cricket has only been played at one Olympics, in Paris in 1900. However, it will return from 2028 in Los Angeles.
The 1900 cricket “tournament” was a single game between Great Britain and France, though neither side was made up of players from the main national team. The game was held with one innings a side but only scheduled for two days, and featured 12 players on each team. For that reason it’s not considered a first class game.
The main reason for cricket’s absence from the Olympics is that its governing body, the ICC, has not previously supported involvement. Other factors include cricket at top level being restricted to a few geographic areas. Historically, cricket being a multi-day game has limited the potential to run a full tournament in the course of a couple of weeks. It’s also often been questionable whether an Olympic medal would be considered the ultimate achievement for the players, which some people argue should be a requirement for a sport’s inclusion.
Cricket will be included in the 2028 Olympics. Sports are no longer added as a “demonstration events” so it will be considered a full event with medals awarded to the top three teams. It is being added as an optional sport. That means that, as things stand, it will only feature in future Olympics if the host nation selects it as one of a maximum of six optional sports, something that seems likely for the 2032 Olympics in Brisbane, Australia. It is possible cricket will eventually be upgraded to a core sport and automatically feature in all future Olympics.
The full details are not yet available but the 2028 games will include men’s and women’s tournaments in the T20 format. Questions yet to be answered include the structure of the tournament, the number of teams, the qualification criteria, and whether the same countries will compete in the men’s and women’s tournaments.
Some more cynical observers have suggested the inclusion is primarily aimed at attracting Olympics viewers in India and that the qualification criteria will be carefully chosen to ensure it is among the participants.
Theoretically, the United Kingdom will compete as a single team, with players from Northern Ireland eligible to choose whether to play for the UK or the Republic of Ireland. Meanwhile the West Indies will not compete as a united team and instead 12 individual countries from the area would be eligible, though it’s unlikely more than one or two would qualify.