Cricket’s much-hyped return to the Olympics at the LA Games will take place at the Fairgrounds Stadium in the city of Pomona, about 50km from Los Angeles, starting on July 12, with the medal matches scheduled for July 20 and 29, 2028. A total of six teams each in men’s and women’s sections and 180 players will compete in the T20 format in the quadrennial showpiece, which hosted cricket for the first and only time in 1900. There are no matches scheduled on July 14 and 21 and most of the the matchdays will be double headers, according to the competition schedule released by the organisers. The only time the gentleman’s game was played at the Olympics was in Paris way back in 1900. Only two teams, Great Britain and France, competed in a two-day match with the former winning the gold medal. With a total of 90 athlete quotas allocated in the men’s and women’s sections, the 12 competing teams can name 15-member squads. Cricket’s growing popularity can be gauged from the fact that three venues in the United States — Grand Prairie, Lauderhill, and New York — organised several matches of the 2024 T20 World Cup, jointly hosted by USA and the West Indies. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) had approved cricket, baseball/softball, flag football, lacrosse (sixes) and squash as five new sports to feature at the 2028 Games. “When the world comes here for these Games, we will highlight every neighbourhood as we host a Games for all and work to ensure it leaves a monumental legacy. “We are already delivering that legacy as we announce there have been more than one million enrollments in PlayLA. I want to thank LA28 and the International Olympic Committee for making these programs possible and for their continued work to host the greatest Games yet,” said Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass in a statement. (With inputs from PTI)