The sight of Sachin Tendulkar in Rio recently caused quite a flutter in the cricket world. What did the sighting of him with IOC chief Thomas Bach at a Rugby sevens match mean? Other than the Great Ts duties as the Indian Olympic Associations (IOA) goodwill ambassador. Was cricket making a pitch for the Olympics by sending in its biggest living superstar?Should cricket even be played under the tent of the Big O? Did the Big O want the sport in? Could T20 be the new Rugby sevens?Turned out Tendulkar was in Rio not as a cricketing emissary of either the ICC or the BCCI. His duty as Indian Olympic goodwill ambassador was to pep up Indias athletes and mingle with the upper echelons of the Olympic Family. La Famille are members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the not-for-profit independent international organisation made up of volunteers that owns and runs the Olympics. During the two weeks the event runs, OF members are awarded head-of-state privileges in the host city.Its a good gig. As it happened, in a curious coincidence, when Tendulkar was in Rio, one of his besties - Nita Ambani, owner of the Mumbai Indians IPL franchise and wife of Mukesh, a regular in the top 50 on the Forbes billionaires list - was elected into the OF as an IOC member from India.World rugbys chief executive, Brett Gosper, reported to the wires that Tendulkar had spent a whole session watching Rugby sevens. Tendulkar loved it and was interested in rugbys journey to the Olympics and why thats an interesting prospect, possibly, for cricket, Gosper said. He was being kind, refraining from exercising rugbys well-established bragging rights. After all, which Commonwealth-centric sport played by a handful of nations at the very top, has an expanding and competitive World Cup, a wide player base, and has made the most of a format that has gone from being considered a tiddlywinks version of the real stuff to a globalisation-magnet?Rugby appears to have found a way past the problems cricket currently wrestles with. The Olympic question was previously somewhere near the bottom of crickets laundry list, but it appears now that there is a bit of a stir round it - for which Tendulkar is not the only one responsible. Once the Olympics have ended and Brazils citizens are left cleaning up after the party and coping with the shock of horrendously large bills, a Very Important Meeting will take place - later in the year, between IOC chief Thomas Bach, ICC chairman Shashank Manohar and BCCI president Anurag Thakur, somewhere in India. No one will talk about it formally, but you heard it here first.The meeting is meant to extend the discussion beyond the broader existential arguments that rise when the words cricket and Olympics are placed in the same sentence. It lies beyond whether cricket needs to bother with the quadrennial event or not. Or, using a phrase copyrighted by colleague Andrew Miller, OlympIN or OlympOUT. The sport, at the moment, is floating somewhere in the netherworld between these two, called OlympHOW on earth?Should it even want to, the earliest Olympics that cricket can make a pitch for is 2024. The announcement of the new sports to figure in the 2020 Games was made a week before the Rio 2016 opening ceremony. They are karate, skateboarding, sports climbing, surfing, and the return of baseball/softball (possibly due to its great traction in Japan). The choice of these new sports owes partly to the need to reel in the young, for whom the modern pentathlon might represent some ancient idiosyncrasy, combined with the logistical ease of putting up temporary venues for these sports.If cricket is interested in making a run for Rome, it must have a blueprint, and must hard-sell between now and the opening ceremony in Tokyo 2020. Which is where the argument gets messy and the matter of cricket wanting the Olympics and/or the Olympics wanting cricket is deemed under consideration and exploratory. Gaining Olympic status comes with conditions attached, which the IOC is within its rights to lay down, but which dont quite serve crickets purpose. The Olympics requires that the sports it hands out medals in bring their best teams and best players. Most sports and nations obediently toe the line. There are some exceptions, like football, which controls its own Olympic destiny and places age restrictions on competitors (all but three players per squad are under 23), or golf, a newbie, which in Rio had to deal with the lily-livered constitutions of its higher-ranked male players - four from the top ten pulled out. For cricket to stick to its best teams and best players defeats the theoretical purpose of its inclusion in the Olympics - broadening the sports presence in non-traditional territories.Someone suggested beach cricket. As if balancing three formats is not headache enough, batsmen and bowlers in swimwear doesnt provide the best solution either.Then theres the infrastructure - drop-in pitches offer a solution, but what about the real estate required around that pitch? Outfield? Stands? Whats the point if no ones watching? Tree falling in a silent forest, and so on. A cricket ground is far more high-maintenance than setting up a temporary skateboarding venue. Or even squashs easily dismantled all-glass courts, which turn up in front of the pyramids of Giza, in Hong Kong harbour, and in shopping malls. The candidate cities for 2024 are Budapest, Paris, Rome and Los Angeles. Of the lot, only LA has turned two baseball grounds into cricket fields.The Sydney Morning Herald recently reported that a 2008 briefing paper titled Cricket Within the Olympic Program - A Golden Opportunity for the Development of Cricket and the Olympic Movement was turned down by the ICC board. The sum and substance of it was that there was an East-West divide among the Full Members over cricket in the Olympics.This is not to say that Asian wariness comes from its dislike of the Olympics. India, for one, have gone more than ten days without a medal in Rio, and the country is in a state of deep gloom and introspection. It is safe to say other subcontinental nations are as hooked to the Games if they have medal stakes. Rather, Asian cricketing nations sweat over being involved in Olympics cricket because it instantly makes them answerable to their national Olympic body, and through that, more vulnerable to more intrusive governmental footprints in their operations.The judges of the Indian Supreme Court would agree that the IOA makes the BCCI look like a cross between the efficiencies of Sony Corp and the humane purpose of Amnesty International. As Indias most self-sustaining and most profitable sports body, it is no surprise the BCCI wants zero conversation with the IOA, and thus with Olympic sport.Yet there is more about crickets dilemma over its best possible relationship with the Olympics than the fact that it is limited by Asian shyness. It will require a straightening out of many glitches in the ICCs functioning to let them catch up with the rugby example. Rugby, through its organised, multi-tiered structure of competition and clear qualification pathways for teams to make it to its biggest events, is about five to seven years ahead of cricket. The ICCs multiple tiers of competition and ranking systems are well intentioned and try to serve the smaller nations, but the routes for qualification to its biggest events are muddied and keep being changed. Sixteen teams in a World Cup or ten? Champions Trophy or whats the point? How many teams in the World T20? Unless cricket accepts that insularity at the highest level eventually fosters inbreeding, the sport could be stuck in the same cyclical conversations every four years.What about Sach and Bach, you ask? Who knows: maybe it is another kind of Olympic debut for cricket. Tendulkar is certainly a member of the global sporting elite. What if the next step up for him is a sporting knighthood of sorts: membership - through some category - of the ultimate athletic aristocracy, the IOC? Maybe the OF really liked him. Discount Stan Smith . Roman Josi had a goal and an assist to lead the Predators to a 4-1 victory over the Dallas Stars on Monday night. Stan Smith Wholesale China . -- The plastic that was taped across the lockers in Oaklands clubhouse came down and the champagne that was on ice went back into the cooler. http://www.wholesalestansmith.com/ .ca. Kerry, Just watched the shootout in the Coyotes/Leafs game and I have to ask, why was the James van Riemsdyk goal allowed to count? All of the video replays we were shown on TV were inconclusive about whether the puck had entirely crossed the line or not. Cheap Stan Smith Free Shipping . Miller finished in two minutes, 6.09 seconds, one day before the first medal race on the Alpine schedule. The 36-year-old American also turned in the top time in Thursdays opening training session. Cheap Stan Smith China Wholesale . Peter Gammons, an analyst for Major League Baseballs network and website, drew the ire of hockey fans on Sunday when he criticized the two NHL teams on Twitter for their physical game the night before. HONOLULU -- Mississippi State coach Vic Schaefer used 13 players, and each of them scored. It was that kind of night for the Bulldogs.Jacaira Allen scored 12 of her 14 points in the second half, and No. 7 Mississippi State beat San Jose State 88-51 on Saturday in the Rainbow Wahine Showdown.Allen was 7 for 9 from the field in 15 minutes. The reserve also had two assists and two rebounds.I liked my bench tonight. I thought they came in and played really well, Schaefer said. It was a good win. I thought our athleticism and quickness really dominated the game defensively.The Bulldogs (6-0) never trailed and led by as many as 39 points. Teaira McCowan, a 6-foot-7 sophomore center, added nine points and 16 rebounds, including seven on the offensive glass.The Spartans (2-4) were held to their second-lowest scoring output of the season and shot just 37 percent from the field.San Jose State had 24 turnovers, leading to 35 points for Mississippi State.Thats what we try to do: disrupt you and not let you run what you want to run, Schaefer said.Jasmine Smith had nine points for San Jose State, which was outrebounded 58-28 by the Bulldogs.We wanted to compete against them and force them to make adjustments and, for the most part, and I thought we did that, San Jose State coach Jamie Craighead said. We knew we were going to give up size on our offensive end. It was really difficult. Our players had to battle a lot and it took its toll. We just looked really fatigued.BIG PICTUREMississippi State: One day after a 14-turnover game against Oregon, the Bulldogs took better care of the basketball.ddddddddddddThey committed 13 turnovers against San Jose State, but just three in the first half before emptying the bench in the third and fourth quarters.San Jose State: The Spartans first-quarter struggles continued against the Bulldogs. They were outscored 21-12 in the opening period Saturday and have been outscored 124-82 in the first quarter through their first six games.TURNING POINTHallie Gennetts deep 3-pointer from the right wing with 5:34 left in the second quarter cut Mississippi States lead to 26-20. The Bulldogs then closed out the half with a 12-2 run.ROLE PLAYERReserve guard Jazzmun Holmes spurred the Bulldogs second-half defensive effort. She had a pair of steals that led to transition layups that was part of a 6-0 run that stretched Mississippi States lead to 55-31 with 4:22 left in the third quarter.She really came in and set the tone, Schaefer said. Her energy is just really, really good and to see her come in and kind of energize my team was a big piece of what I thought allowed us to be successful in the second half.UP NEXTMississippi State will take on tournament host Hawaii on Sunday. It will mark the first time the Bulldogs and Rainbow Wahine have faced off.San Jose State returns to the court Sunday against Oregon, which has won 10 of 12 meetings against the Spartans. SJSU has lost five straight in the series since its last win over the Ducks, 68-62 on Feb. 14, 1986. Wholesale Hoodies NFL Shirts Outlet Jerseys NFL Wholesale Cheap NFL Jerseys Free Shipping Wholesale Jerseys Cheap Cheap NFL Jerseys China Wholesale Jerseys Wholesale NFL Jerseys Cheap NFL Jerseys China Cheap NFL Jerseys ' ' '