It took a few renditions of "Mister Blue Sky" but the clouds eventually disappeared in time for India to beat Pakistan by eight wickets in the Commonwealth Games T20 cricket competition.

By the time the Indian victory was accomplished, the ground was almost full and bathed in glorious sunshine.

"The atmosphere in the packed stadium today has been electric and hundreds of millions of fans around the world will have been tuned in to watch this great sporting rivalry," International Cricket Council (ICC) chief executive Geoff Allardice told insidethegames.

"India versus Pakistan is always such a special sporting occasion and the prominence of cricket in both countries gave this fixture added importance."

In the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, the scheduling of the match was deliberately designed to catch a Sunday afternoon television and online audience in the sub continent.

It also offered a clue as to just why the ICC are so keen to support the campaign for cricket’s inclusion on the Olympic programme at the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games.

"We are assisting the LA 2028 organisers and providing any information that will help their assessment of different sports with regards to addition to the Olympic programme," Allardice confirmed.

The decision is not set to be made until next year and places at the Olympic top table are limited.

The media appeal of the sport is now calculated not only in terms of "appointment to view," television viewers but in its digital reach on phones and other electronic devices.

In the last T20 Men’s World Cup in October 2021 the encounter between India and Pakistan attracted the largest global audience seen on television and digital platforms since the T20 format was introduced to cricket back in 2003.

In India alone, it attracted what the ICC described as "a record consumption" of 15.9 million minutes.

The 2022 Women’s World Cup over the longer 50 overs format, held in New Zealand back in March and April, was claimed by the ICC to be the "third most engaged ICC event" ever seen with 1.64 billion total video views.

Birmingham 2022 organisers have already claimed that over 150,000 tickets have been sold for their T20 competition, eclipsing the 136,549 purchased at the 2020 ICC Women’s T20 World Cup in Australia.

Television audience figures and "digital engagement" are factors that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) take very seriously in evaluating new sports for the programme.

They also set great store by the universality of each sport.

There are now 57 nations in the women’s T20 rankings and 78 in men’s cricket.

Last August, the United States published a “Foundational Plan” which set out their aspirations for developing the sport in America until 2030.

The document revealed "a long-term vision for cricket to be established as a leading sport in the United States, and cricket’s potential entry into the Olympics, especially for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games, would act as an enormous catalyst for the growth and development of the sport across America."

They believe that Olympic recognition would be the cue for cricket to receive greater funding and are also pushing hard for its inclusion into the Pan American Games.

India have competed at every Summer Olympics since 1920, but hockey has accounted for eight of their nine Olympic gold medals.

Cricket is already set for a return to the Asian Games in Hangzhou.

These were to have taken place this year but were postponed because of the pandemic and are now are set to take place in September 2023.

The sport had been part of the programme at the Asian Games in 2010 when Bangladesh won gold in the men's tournament and in 2014 when Sri Lanka were the winners.

On both occasions, Pakistan won gold in the women's competition.

The sport has also taken hold amongst the Afghans, who were introduced to the sport by refugees who in turn were introduced to cricket in Pakistan.

They had fled the Soviet invasion.

Their cricket board was only formed in 1995 but such was the pace of their progress that they are a now a recognised test and one day nation.

In Nepal, the sport grew rapidly as a result of the 1996 ICC World Cup held in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, when viewers in the country were inspired by what they saw on television.

Sri Lanka won the 1996 tournament and are considered role models for the Nepalese, who made rapid progress and were granted a prestigious fixture against the Marylebone Cricket Club at Lord’s Cricket Ground in London in 2016.

The match was streamed live on the internet and is said to have attracted an audience of over 100,000 in and around Kathmandu.

The ICC strategy of advancing the sport has resulted in its inclusion for the 2023 African Games, which are expected to take place in Accra next August.

Apart from South Africa and Zimbabwe, there is a strong cricket community in East Africa and particularly in Kenya.

The national side reached the ICC World Cup semi-final in 2003 when the competition was held in Southern Africa.

The sport is also growing in Rwanda where a new cricket ground at Gahanga has been built as the country recovers from the 1994 genocide.

If the ICC were so inclined, they could also play the heritage card in their presentations to the IOC as other sports have done in the past.

When Baron Pierre de Coubertin planned his revival of the Olympics for the modern era, he pencilled in the name of Lord Harris as a potential IOC member. 

Harris had been a distinguished captain of England and was a grandee of the MCC in London which then wielded a tremendous influence on the sport.

The tentative plans for the first modern Olympics in 1896 included cricket.

In November 1894, de Coubertin told the Parnassus Society in Athens that cricket "would take place on the plain." 

The sport was even included in the printed prospectus which was circulated to sports officials across the world.

When the Athens 1896 Olympic Games, the first of the modern era, finally took place however, there was no sign of cricket.

Cricket was included on the Olympic programme for the Paris Games in 1900 when a single match was played at the Velodrome de Vincennes in Paris.

Belgium and the Netherlands were both invited to compete alongside but they did not take part in the event. 

The French team was drawn from the Standard Athletic Club in Paris.

They were mostly expatriate Englishmen.

Their opponents were a team from the Devon and Somerset County Wanderers, a team of amateur players, drawn from Blundell’s School and Castle Cary Cricket Club.

They included Montagu Toller and Alfred Bowerman, who had both played first class matches for Somerset.

Notably absent were two legendary figures of the sport.

William Gilbert Grace, know to all as "WG" was the most famous cricketer of the day but he remained in London.

CB Fry was another gifted sporting all-rounder who had equalled the world long jump record but was never to be involved in an Olympic Games. 

The intrepid Devon and Somerset County Wanderers proved more than a match for their "French" counterparts and won a two innings match over two days by 158 runs.

The official "Revue Olympique" of October 1903 suggests that an "Olympic Cricket Championships" was to take place in September 1904 at the St Louis Olympics. Once again, it was a false dawn.

Even more bizarrely, de Coubertin himself planned cricket at the Villa Borghesi as part of the 1908 Olympics when they were awarded to Rome.

When the Games were withdrawn from Rome, the idea of having cricket at the Olympics disappeared, even though the Olympics were re-assigned to London.

That year many cricket club members also took part in racquets and real tennis and followed the competition in these sports which took place at Queen's Club at Kensington.

A bewildering array of sports were included in early Olympics but the pressure of numbers was not so great in those days.

Probably the biggest obstacle nowadays is the IOC imposed limit of around 10,500 competitors for the Summer Olympics.

What would the scenario for any Olympic cricket tournament entail?

At these Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games there are eight teams which field a squad of 15 players giving a total of 120 cricketers in all.

The IOC would insist on gender equity so that number would double to incorporate a men's competition.

The question then would be, which other sport would have to step down from the programme to make way for cricket?

The likelihood is that it would be another team sport.

The decision on additional sports for Los Angeles 2028 will be made next year and competition will be fierce.

It is hard to envisage an Olympic Games in Los Angeles without baseball/softball even if the players from Major League decline to participate.

After all, baseball was a demonstration sport when the Games were last in Los Angeles back in 1984, as a step towards inclusion on the full programme of the Games a few years later.

Perhaps cricket would have a better chance of inclusion at Brisbane 2032?

The cricket friendly skies under the Southern Cross might just be the perfect setting.