TOI Exclusive: Cricket, hockey to be 'core sports' at CWG 2030

NEW DELHI: The great Indian sporting obsessions — cricket and hockey — will feature as the two ‘core sports' at the 2030 Commonwealth Games in Ahmedabad. Core sports are a must for a host nation to include in its Games programme and T20 cricket and hockey almost automatically make the cut. Men's cricket will return to the CWG fold after 32 years, albeit in a shortened format. Sachin Tendulkar, Anil Kumble and others had represented India at the 1998 Kuala Lumpur Games in which the Shaun Pollock-led South Africans won gold in the ODI format. The women's T20 tournament was most recently included at the Birmingham 2022.

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This decision to include the popular sport in India, settles a three-way contest between cricket, hockey and rugby sevens to fill the two remaining mandatory spots in the programme, which formed part of the ‘large team sports'.

Commonwealth Sport, the Games' global governing body, had already announced eight out of the 10 core sports when it awarded the hosting rights to Gujarat's capital city at its general assembly in Glasgow last week.



These are athletics and para-athletics, swimming and para swimming, table tennis and para table tennis, bowls and para bowls, weightlifting and para powerlifting, artistic gymnastics, netball and boxing. It is learnt that the Indian Olympic Association (IOA), in discussion with the Gujarat govt officials, opted for cricket and hockey due to their widespread popularity.

The final Games programme will be announced in April 2026. The Indian organisers of the Games, meanwhile, have decided to feature a full roster of sports disciplines in Ahmedabad, which were axed from the Birmingham 2022 and won't feature in the Glasgow edition next year as well. In Birmingham, the Games programme had excluded shooting and archery. For Glasgow 2026, nine key sports including badminton, cricket, hockey, shooting, squash, table tennis and wrestling, among others, were dropped. While ratifying the host city, Commonwealth Sport confirmed that CWG 2030 will feature 17 disciplines, of which 10 will be core sports.

Additionally, five optional and two traditional disciplines will feature to complete the 17-sports line-up.

Among the optional sports, badminton, shooting, archery and wrestling are likely to feature. The fifth optional sport is likely to be squash. The two traditional sports set to feature include yogasana and kho kho.


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