Cricket was last played at the Olympics in Paris in 1900, but it is hoping to return at the 2028 Games in Los Angeles. It has established a working group, led by England and Wales Cricket Board chairman Ian Watmore. 

Watmore told BBC Radio’s Test Match Special: "Putting cricket on at the Olympics will inspire men and women and boys and girls around the world to take up our great game. We had a very positive meeting and we are off and running. We will be pushing hard to secure this."

The working group includes independent director Indra Nooyi, Zimbabwe Cricket chairman Tavengwa Mukuhlani, Asian Cricket Council vice president Mahinda Vallipuram and USA Cricket chairman Paraag Marathe. 

The time constraints of an Olympic fortnight suggest Twenty20 (T20) will be the most likely format, which Watmore admitted. "We start with the focus on T20 because as part of the Olympic rules you have to have a format of your sport that is globally played," he explained. "You don’t want to invent something just for the Olympics."

Watmore added: "The mindset is to have a balanced competition that is quality cricket when it is played in front of the global stage."

The ICC must first convince LA28 to propose the sport as part of the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) Agenda 2020, but the final say rests with the IOC.   

The decision could well be taken in Paris, home city of Baron Pierre de Coubertin. He was a great admirer of British sport and had seen cricket played during his extensive travels. As he planned to revive the Olympics, the name of Lord Harris was suggested to him as a potential IOC member. Harris had been an England cricket captain and was a highly influential figure of the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC). 

When the revival of the Olympics was agreed at a congress organised by Coubertin in 1894, cricket was included in section H for "Athletic Games", with matches played according to MCC regulations. 

In November 1894, Coubertin told the Parnassus Society in Athens that cricket "would take place on the plain." Yet when the Games did take place, no preparations were made for cricket.

The 1900 Olympics were to be held in Paris in conjunction with an international exposition. Organisers expected Belgium and the Netherlands to participate alongside England and France. In fact, only the latter two sides took part. 

In the Games, Castle Cary cricket club and Blundell’s School in the West Country combined as the Devon and Somerset County Wanderers (DCW) to represent England. They included Montagu Toller and Alfred Bowerman, who had both played first class matches for Somerset. 

The match, played at the Vélodrome de Vincennes, was reported in the prestigious magazine Cricket, which carried an account translated from Journal de Sports. 

Monsieur Denny, in charge of organisation, assured everyone that "there had never been a better situation for Cricket in France." Even so, the tourists took a first innings lead after the home team, described as "All Paris", were dismissed for 78 in their first innings. 

Although the team was styled "All France", it was represented by a combination of Standard Athletic Club and Albion Cricket players, the player names providing the clue that most of the participants were British expatriates, many of which had settled in Paris at the time the Eiffel Tower was built. 

DCW declared at 145 for 5 in their second innings and the Parisians were skittled out for 26. They "offered only a feeble resistance," said reports. 

"The English were delighted with the cordial reception which was given to them and declared the ground was excellent and the organisation perfect." 

The lengthy preparations for the 1904 Games in America seemed at one stage to suggest another opportunity for cricket. The official "Revue Olympique" of October 1903 listed an "Olympic Cricket Championships" to take place in September 1904 at the Games in St Louis. Once again, it was a false dawn. 

The MCC minutes from 1904 also record a message from Lord Kinnaird, who had received correspondence from what he described as "the St Louis Committee." He was in fact talking about the IOC, which was about to hold its session in London. 

After meetings at the Mansion House in the morning, an IOC group, including Coubertin himself, was taken to Lord’s Cricket Ground to watch a match between Middlesex and the South African touring team. They were welcomed by WG Grace, perhaps the most recognisable personality in sport at the time, and Lord Darnley, who was MCC club President in 1900 and had received the tiny urn containing the Ashes which became an enduring symbol of Anglo-Australian cricket.  

The match itself was noted for some fine individual performances, including a century by Bernard Bosanquet, an outstanding Middlesex spin bowler who had devised the googly. The match ended in a tie, still a rare occurrence in cricket. 

Later that week, the IOC was concerned with the choice of host city for 1908. Coubertin had received word that the Roman city council "had been delighted to accept the support of the city authorities for the inspired and fertile initiative." A rival bid from Berlin was put aside and Rome was selected. Cricket was again included on the provisional sports schedule.

Anglophile as he was, Coubertin was realistic about the prospects. "There is no reason to expect many teams to enter for football or cricket," he wrote. 

Matches were planned for the Villa Borghese, a popular park in the middle of the city, but when organisers in Rome experienced financial problems - Mount Vesuvius erupted in early 1906, causing widespread damage in the region around Naples - the Rome Olympics were clearly impossible and by the end of the year, London had been confirmed as replacement hosts. 

Lord Desborough, later to become MCC President, was appointed chairman of the Organising Committee. MCC secretary Sir Francis Lacey was cricket’s representative on the council of the newly formed British Olympic Association. 

There were still some who hoped there might be Olympic cricket. The official report of the Games stipulated "the main principle laid down for 1908 was that no competition should be sanctioned which was not practised by several different nations.".

As a result, along with pelota and baseball, cricket was rejected "because the practice of these games was too restricted in character for the purposes of an international competition." Other sports, though, were included despite equally restricted international fields. Racquets and jeu de paume attracted players from only Britain and America. Boxing had fighters only from Britain, France and one from Australia. Rugby union went ahead with only two entrants.  

Writing in 1909, Coubertin admitted, "cricket has practically no appeal for those who are not British and at least so far, it seems that one must be an American to have a taste for baseball." Unsurprisingly, cricket was not considered the first time Los Angeles staged the Olympics in 1932. 

Yet that summer, a new cricket club took its first steps in Hollywood. It was founded by Sir C. Aubrey Smith, a 67-year-old British actor who had played test cricket for England. Popular legend has it that when Laurence Olivier and others such as Boris Karloff and David Niven arrived in "Tinsel Town", they were immediately summoned for cricket practice by Smith. 

The ICC's problem might be competition. The Finnish sport of pesäpallo, which is similar to baseball, was included as a demonstration sport at the 1952 Helsinki Games. American baseball was demonstrated six times before final admittance to the programme in 1992, before softball followed in 1996. 

Both were dropped after 2008 but made a return to the programme in Tokyo. Given their popularity in America, it seems reasonable they will be chosen in 2028. 

As such, the IOC limit of 10,500 participants might prove an obstacle to the inclusion of cricket.

But the ICC believes the promise of a fan base of over one billion - of which 92 per cent are in Southern Asia, it claims - will prove irresistible. 

"You just need to let the thing play out and people will come to the fore," Watmore said. "You imagine what it would do in India, if somebody like Virat Kohli or his successor was there holding a gold medal aloft. I think we will see the stories write themselves, if we can get the Games on."