Cricket will be included in the 2024 Olympics if Rome wins its bid to host the games, the president of the Italian board has said.Rome is one of the cities bidding to host the Olympics in 2024 - alongside Paris, Los Angeles and Budapest - and, under new regulations, will have the opportunity to add five sports to the games as they see fit. France Cricket is attempting to win a similar commitment with the Paris organising committee.If Rome hosts the Olympics, cricket will be included, Simone Gambino, president of the Federazione Cricket Italiana (FCI) told ESPNcricinfo. We have had a firm commitment from the organising committee.It is likely that, if Rome does host the games, cricket would be held in Bologna. The city hosted World Cricket League Division Four matches in 2010 and though the availability of turf pitches may be an issue, there would be time to overcome that should the bid be successful.Which nations would be involved remains open to debate. There would probably be a maximum of 16 teams invited to take part, though there is a possibility of just 12, with Olympic regulations suggesting they will be spread across the globe.So, if only 12 teams were included, three might come from Europe, three from Asia, two from Africa, two or three from America and the Caribbean and two or three from the South Pacific area. It could well be that some well-known cricket nations - notably England, who are part of the UK in Olympic terms - miss out.Roma 2024 would welcome new sports, such as cricket, in the Olympic program also in consideration of the increasing number of people that are actively playing it in Italy, a spokesman for the Rome 2024 organising committee told ESPNcricinfo. We are however fully aware that such a decision belongs to the International Olympic Committee and therefore our planning is exclusively based on the indications received from the IOC in Lausanne.The news emerged as the ICC continued its annual conference in Edinburgh. Having started the week with high hopes of winning agreement on a number of fairly radical proposals - the introduction of promotion and relegation in Test and ODI cricket, the return of a World T20 every two years and a change in the manner in which revenues are pooled and distributed among other things - it now appears it will take longer than anticipated for all the strands to come together.As a result the press conference planned for Saturday, when the ICC hoped to unveil the agreements, was cancelled and an extra meeting has been arranged for late August in Dubai. The next ICC board meeting takes place in South Africa in October.While tangible progress has been limited, the mood of the conference has been notably more optimistic than in previous years. After years of being bullied (in the words of one Associate delegate) by a couple of dominant Full Member nations, the talk now is of family and consensus. Plans have not been derailed as much as given a more realistic timeframe for completion.One intriguing suggestion from the meeting concerns qualification for future World Cups. While Associate members will likely be disappointed by the proposal that the tournament remains a 10-team event, some discussion has taken place around the possibility of only the top six teams in the ICC rankings qualifying automatically with the other four gaining qualification through a play-off tournament. Such criteria, even if accepted, is unlikely to be introduced until the 2023 tournament.Other matters dealt with the unanimous election of Saudi Arabia as the 39th Associate member, and the unanimous ratification of the suspensions of the USA Cricket Association (USACA) and the Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN). They were suspended in June 2015 and April 2016, respectively. An ICC delegation, including board members, will visit both suspended nations shortly.Both Nepal and the US are important Members of the ICC as they have tremendous talent and potential, ICC chairman Shashank Monohar said. The ICC, as part of its game and market development strategy, will continue to provide the countries with as much support as possible so that they can put in place good governance and cricket structures. Wholesale Kings Jerseys . 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What general manager Dave Nonis called "short and productive" negotiations ended with Kessel signing a US$64-million, eight-year contract on Tuesday. When we walked out on to the field there was a group of Pakistani supporters on the right-hand side and they were giving us all sorts of stick - You should be back in the pub and you should be drinking Guinness celebrating St Patricks Day. You dont play cricket. So Ireland captain Trent Johnston later recalled of St Patricks Day 2007. By the end of the day, Johnstons match-clinching six out of Sabina Park had knocked Pakistan out of the World Cup - and proved to them, and the world, that Ireland do indeed play cricket.Now Pakistan go to Ireland with the World Cup on their minds: not the ghosts of 2007, but 2019. While the contraction of the World Cup to ten teams is viewed exclusively as an Associate issue, one consequence is that, for the first time ever, Pakistan are in danger of missing out on the World Cup.For all the buoyancy surrounding their magnificent Test win at The Oval, Pakistan lie in ninth position in the ODI rankings, seven points behind West Indies. If that does not change before September 30 next year, Pakistan will be forced into a cut-throat qualifying tournament, in which only two of the ten competing sides will progress to the 2019 World Cup. For now, the criticism of one-day internationals as lacking context does not apply to Pakistan.That Pakistans World Cup participation is in jeopardy at the very moment when they are on the brink of becoming the No. 1 Test nation in the world only serves to accentuate the differences in their performances across the two formats of the game. They have lost their last five ODIs.We can improve our ranking: we know were far better than where were ranked at the moment, one-day captain Azhar Ali said. There are a lot of reasons behind our one-day performances. Weve lost a lot of experienced players in the recent past. The youngsters are coming in and need a bit of time to get settled. We need a bit of consistency in selection - we have to back the guys who are coming into the squad. In the last few years we didnt perform to all aspects of the game.Pakistans bowling remains a potent force in ODI cricket. But in their athleticism in the field, and, more pertinently, their power-hitting and approach to batting, Pakistan have been left behind.Our performances are not as consistent as in Test cricket, and we need to really improve our skills, Azhar said. The fielding is really important, and the way the scores have really gone up in the last year or so - we have to really match that. Weve been discussing this for the last six months or so that we really need to catch up with the way other teams are playing their cricket.You need to go at a good pace in one-day cricket. That doesnt necessarily have to be big hitting all the time. We play a lot of dot balls in one-day cricket so we need to improve that and keep rotating the strike.Pakistan hope that the return of Sharjeel Khan will reinvigorate the top order. After an underwhelming start to his ODI career in 2013-14, averaging just 17.63 in 11 matches, Sharjeel has been recalled, following a fine tour for Pakistan A in England and an encouraging WT20 tournament. He will be expeected to provide belligerence and six appeal: he hit seven sixes during an innings of 125 against England Lions last month, and has a strike rate of over 100 in List A cricket.ddddddddddddHasan Ali and Mohammad Nawaz, a pair of 22-year-olds who have also impressed for Pakistan A - Ali is a pace bowler, Nawaz an allrounder who bowls left-arm spin - might get selected for their ODI debuts, as Pakistan accelerate their attempts to overhaul the side. It would also help if Azhar himself extended his Test form to the ODI game: he has not made a half-century since last July.Ireland also approach the series in a state of uncertainty: they have slipped to 12th in the ODI rankings and, three years after a tie with Pakistan at Clontarf, 10km away from Malahide, are still awaiting an ODI victory against a Full Member in Dublin.Its time we not only put ourselves in positions to win games but actually win game, the captain William Porterfield said. We need to be learning. If you look at the records of the teams starting off in international cricket weve got one of the best.The batting line-ups overdependence upon Ed Joyce, who scored two undefeated centuries in the 2-2 draw with Afghanistan, is worrying: Ireland have been well-beaten in the four ODIs this summer in which Joyce has not scored a hundred. The return of Niall OBrien, who scored 72 at Sabina Park nine years ago, will help, but confusion still surrounds the role of Paul Stirling.Though he has scored two ODI centuries opening against Pakistan, and continues to open for Middlesex in white-ball cricket, Stirling was deployed at No.6 against Afghanistan, and is expected to be used as a finisher again against Pakistan, even though Porterfield said, Long-term I see him at the top of the order. I think hes most feared at the top.If Boyd Rankins absence deprived Ireland of a unique threat, succession planning with the ball is progressing more smoothly than with the bat. Barry McCarthy, a zesty cricketer who seams the ball, has taken 14 wickets in his first six ODIs and impressed for Durham, while Peter Chase and Craig Young are now both fit after a series of injury concerns.Weve gone through a transition ourselves in the last two years, Porterfield reflected. Against Afghanistan we had 70 caps in our whole attack, bar Kevin OBrien. Thats the exciting thing for ourselves. A lot of the lads coming in are under 23 or 24 and looking to stake their claims. We just need more games for them to build up their experience, so when the next World Cup comes around theyve got a battery of games under their belt.If the pitch is unlikely to be as green as that in Jamaica nine years ago, it will be more conducive to seam than when Ireland played Sri Lanka at Malahide in June. Ireland have the chance not merely to record another victory against Pakistan, to add to that one Johnston led them to in the Caribbean, but also to increase the pressure on crickets governing elite to make good on the promise of progressive reform. ' ' '