Still out: Cricket to remain absent from Commonwealth Games

Cricket is set to remain absent from the Commonwealth Games until at least the 2022 edition of the multi-sport event after the International Cricket Council (ICC) turned down an invitation from the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF).

The 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur marked the only occasion that cricket has featured at the event, with South Africa winning gold in the sport's 50-over format.

Prince Tunku Imran, the president of the CGF, formally approached the ICC in 2012 to consider participating in the 2014 Glasgow Games, which got underway on Wednesday, and also the next edition in Gold Coast, Australia.

'There were discussions about the inclusion of men's and women's Twenty20 cricket in both the 2014 and 2018 Commonwealth Games, but neither of these came to fruition,' an ICC spokesperson told the Reuters news agency.

'However, cricket is scheduled to feature in the Commonwealth Youth Games in St Lucia in 2017.'

Cricket's place in multi-sport events has been a continual talking point. Earlier this month, newly-appointed ICC president Mustafa Kamal said he believed the sport's value would be 'diluted' by a place at the Olympic Games.

In February 2010, the ICC received full Olympic recognition from the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the first step towards cricket's possible inclusion in the Olympic Games, with the Twenty20 format of the sport linked as a potential entry point. The ICC's associate and affiliate nations are said to be largely in favour of cricket at the Olympics, with powerful full member countries England and India understood to be against such a move.