Pat Cummins is thrilled at the prospect of cricket’s historic return to the Olympics at the Los Angeles 2028 Games, eager to represent the Australian cricket team on this prestigious stage.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) formalised cricket’s entry to the LA28 Summer Games at the 141st IOC Session in Mumbai in October last year. The sport will be played in the T20 format.

Cummins will be 35 when the LA Games begin but hopes to don the Australian jersey at the Olympics.

“That’d be pretty awesome,” Cummins was quoted saying by ESPNcricinfo. “After seeing Paris the last few weeks, I’ve started to get pretty excited about potentially going.

“It hadn’t really been on any of our radars. Four years away, anything can happen so you never quite know.

“But that’d be awesome to represent Australia in the middle of an Olympics, that’d be special,” Cummins added.

Australia finished the Paris 2024 Olympics with 18 gold medals, for the country’s best haul ever at the Summer Games.

Cummins has scalped 66 wickets in 57 T20 internationals for Australia since his debut in October 2011.

The all-rounder was a vital part of the Australian cricket team that won the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup in 2021, picking up five wickets at an economy rate of 7.37. He also featured in the latest edition of the tournament in June this year.

In IPL 2024, Cummins led the Sunrisers Hyderabad to the final. Later, he also played for the San Francisco Unicorns in Major League Cricket 2024, where they finished as the runners-up.

Notably, Cummins won the World Test Championship and the ODI World Cup as the Australian cricket team captain in 2023.

Cricket was last played in the Olympics at Paris 1900, where Great Britain beat France in a one-off men’s match. Cricket has since featured at global multi-sport events like the Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games.

The Commonwealth Games in 1998 saw the men’s teams play 50 overs per side matches while the 2022 edition in Birmingham saw women’s teams compete in T20 cricket format.

Last year, the Asian Games in Hangzhou saw both men’s and women’s teams compete in the T20 format. The sport made its Asian Games debut at Guangzhou 2010.

Cricket is one of the five new sports for LA28. Baseball/softball, flag football, lacrosse (sixes) and squash are the other four additions.