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.
Baseball at the 1956 Summer Olympics
Baseball was again a demonstration sport at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne. Though it was nominally the "foreign" demonstration sport of that Olympiad, Australia had a long history of baseball dating back to at least 1889. The Australians were the first to field a full team in an exhibition match against the United States, represented by a detachment from the United States Far East Command. Many Sheffield Shield cricket players – who were quite successful at baseball as a winter sport – were unable to be selected on the basis that they were professional players.