New Delhi: Twenty20 cricket, along with Dance Sport, Dragon Boat, Roller sport and the ancient Chinese board game of Weiqi, will make their debut when Guangzhou hosts the 16th Asian Games in 2010.
An estimated 14,000 athletes and officials would converge in the Chinese city to take part in the sporting extravaganza that would host 42 events in 62 venues, Fang Daer, Marketing Director of the Guangzhou Asian Games Organising Committee, told reporters on Tuesday.
"We are grateful to India for their support. Cricket has a huge mass base in your country and we are happy to have accommodated cricket in our list of disciplines," Daer said.
Daer expressed the hope that India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh - the Test cricket playing nations of the continent would send their top teams for the event, even though he could not confirm the hosts' participation. "Well, China's participation remains undecided. We have to talk to the Chinese Cricket Association and we still have some time to decide on that," he said through an interpreter.
Daer also admitted that cricket was yet to emerge as a game with a large enough base and confessed China was hardly familiar with the Twenty20 format. "It's not that popular a game in China but things are changing and more and more people are being drawn to the game. Twenty20 is a new format but we hope we can sort out the issue and remain hopeful of China's participation in the game," he said.
Olympic Council of Asia Secretary Randhir Singh felt the Asian Games debut could prove an important step towards cricket's inclusion in the greatest sporting extravaganza on earth. "Asian Games debut is a step in the right direction for cricket's Olympic debut. It's the perfect platform for the game to spread roots and Olympics might be the next target," he said.
Guangzhou will host 28 Olympic and six non-Olympic events. Among the events being introduced in Guangzhou, Wei is an ancient Chinese board game, which is similar to chess and is known as Igo or Go in Japanese and Baduk or Gi in Korean. Despite its rather simple rules, the game is known for its strategic complexity. Indian Olympic Association President Suresh Kalmadi predicted Guangzhou would improve upon Doha and host the best Asian Games ever.
"Whatever the Chinese take up, they settle for nothing less than the best. I think we are going to see an Asian Games which would be even better than what we saw in Doha."
Guangzhou would have a total of 98 venues - including 62 for competitions, 28 for training and eight non-competition sites - for the Games, Daer said.
Randhir Singh, meanwhile, informed that OCA would meet in December or February next year to dwell on its decision to put a cap on the number of events for the 2014 Asian Games. According to the decisions taken, 35 sports would be allowed, including 28 Olympic sports and seven others to be added after negotiation with the organisers.
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