Recently there have been suggestions by more than a few people that cricket should really be a part of the Olympics. While there have been attempts before at including cricket as part of multi-sport extravaganzas, notably the Commonwealth Games a few years back, those attempts have turned out to be duds.

Earlier, to hold an event where each ODI match would take 8 hours including breaks, and to make it part of a bigger event where the 100 meters victor is decided in below 10 seconds, was more than a mis-match. Now with the advent of Twenty-20 cricket, the idea suddenly looks more realistic.

Twenty-20 matches will still not be completed in below 10 seconds, but an action packed 2-3 hours per game is definitely something the crowds will root for, and the organizers can organize. While cricket is only played by a handful of nations, becoming an Olympic event might just encourage more countries to start playing it.

All said and done, while I think it is a great idea, I am also glad that cricket is not yet there in the Olympics. I cannot see any other form of the game than Twenty-20 being realistically part of the Olympics, and when I think Twenty-20 cricket, I remember the World Twenty-20 Cup which India won under the captaincy of MS Dhoni. The Indian team was young, fresh, and energetic and they whipped ass on their way to the cup. The Gambhirs, the Uthappas, the Pathans, the Yuverajs and so on!

I am sure that had Twenty-20 cricket been part of the Olympics 2008 in China, the biggest "desh bhakt"s in our country, the ones who have served Indian cricket with distinction over the years, would have been the natural choices to represent the country. No cricket team today could have left our shores for representing India at the Olympics without Tendulkar, Ganguly, Dravid, and Kumble in it, even if these players feature nowhere in the BCCI's plans today for at least the ODI and Twenty-20 game.

It would be fitting, as all experts would have put it, to add an Olympic medal to the other distinctions they have won over the years. Nay, it would not just be fitting; it would be the crowning glory of their careers and they deserved to get this glory because of the services rendered. India owed it to these valiant warriors to send them to the Olympics to get that gold medal; the Pontings, Greame Smiths and Flintoffs would just show up to make up the numbers and provide a little bit of competition so no one says we got it too easy.

Sure, it all sounds like drivel in a sporting world where Olympic gold is won or lost by a tenth of a second, but India would have fallen back on its biggest strength (weakness, really) of glorifying the human deities like they do in every field of life, from politics to films to cricket.

What would have resulted is more heartburn for the fans as the Indian team would have crashed and burned as they did in the last World Cup. While the young turks who got the Twenty-20 World Cup home would have watched from home, the "deserving" Gods of Indian cricket would have mucked it up for sure.

Nothing against these players – I have been one of their fans for many years - but there was a time when they were great, and that time is over! Only the recognition of that time being over is taking time to sink in for a lot of people.

By the next Olympics, the team would be free of the Gods unless in the upcoming four years, we manufacture some more, which is not an un-realistic thought. While I don't say that the BCCI always picks the best players, at least a team would go which would be better placed to win a Twenty-20 tournament.