Cricket at the Summer Olympics
Cricket was originally scheduled to be included in the inaugural 1896 Summer Olympics, which were held in Athens; cricket would have been the only team sport held at the Games. There were, however, insufficient entries and so no event was held.
Olympic sports
For most of the 20th century, demonstration sports were included in many Olympic Games, usually to promote a non-Olympic sport popular in the host country, or to gauge interest and support for the sport.
The competitions and ceremonies in these sports were identical to official Olympic sports, except that the medals were not counted in the official record.
Some demonstration sports, like baseball and curling, were later added to the official Olympic program.
This changed when the International Olympic Committee decided in 1989 to eliminate demonstration sports from Olympics Games after 1992. An exception was made in 2008, when the Beijing Organizing Committee received permission to organize a wushu tournament.