Canadian cricket already benefiting from boost of impending Olympic return

Amid the excitement of flag football coming to the Olympics, another sport will also join the Los Angeles 2028 program.

For the first time since 1900, cricket — in the forms of men's and women's T20 tournaments — will be contested in California.

And Canadian women's national team player Achini Perera is hoping to be part of the action.

"I remember in 2010, when Sidney Crosby [scored] in overtime, I was sitting there with my family and watching it — like that stage is insane. I almost wondered as a kid, like, 'Oh, why isn't cricket in there?'" Perera said.

Now, of course, it is — not only in Los Angeles, but also in Brisbane 2032.

However, Perera and Canada's women's team face an uphill climb to qualifying as the 31st-ranked squad for a tournament that will feature just six teams per gender.

Still, the goal for Perera and Cricket Canada is for the sport's reintroduction to the Olympics to light a fuse that brings the game to more people across the country and eventually leads to greater success at the elite level.

The process continues Saturday, when the first-ever Cricket to Conquer Cancer fundraiser will take place at Celebration Square in Mississauga, Ont. Meanwhile, in downtown Toronto, the Blue Jays partnered with Cricket Canada on a warm-up jacket giveaway for their game that day.

"It won't be the sole thing that puts cricket on the map in Canada, but it's a very good starting point. And it isn't speaking only to the already growing ethnic population, it's also speaking to Canadians who will be loving the Blue Jays, who will be loving the Raptors and saying, well, hello, there's another sport here," said Carlos Brathwaite, the former captain of the West Indies men's T20 team.

"It's the second biggest sport in the world. Come hold a bat, come hold a ball, try your luck at this. And if you can convert 10 per cent of the people who didn't know about cricket before the event and have them showing any interest, I think that'd be a win."

Brathwaite and Perera will be joined by celebrities like Dwayne De Rosario, Jamaal Magloire and Jully Black at the fundraiser for cancer research hosted by the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation.

Through the planning process, which began with a media launch last May, he connected with fellow cricketer Kenroy Williams, who had survived his own bout with breast cancer.

However, Williams' cancer returned last year and he died at 40 in November. Along with Brathwaite, Williams' uncle and other Barbadian cricketers will be present at the event in Mississauga.

"Hopefully an emotional day is the start of a long-standing relationship between the people of Barbados and the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation. And if Kenroy and his interest in participating in the event could be catalyst to that, then that would make me a very happy man," Brathwaite said.