This week, ahead of the full IOC session running from October 15 to October 17, the IOC Executive Board is meeting in Mumbai, which will effectively seal the decision.
Cricket could not have found a better city than this to express itself.
The IOC session is being held in one of the hot spots of the sport as India is hosting the men’s 50-over World Cup.
Cricket, with its multiple formats and bizarre rules, has long been a source of curiosity in areas of the world where it is not played.
But the global language of cold, hard cash is easy to understand.
The argument that Olympic cricket would conflict with the English season or that the game would last too long is now becoming obsolete.
The global calendar is now a mix of international cricket, domestic cricket and franchise cricket, with multiple formats gaining attention.
The wildly popular T20 Indian Premier League, which has spawned several other franchise competitions around the world, means that traditional five-day Test cricket, long considered the pinnacle of the game, no longer holds sway.
