NEW DELHI: Sprint icon Usain Bolt may be long retired from the track, but the Jamaican great has hinted at an unexpected return to elite sport — this time with a cricket bat in hand. With cricket set to make its Olympic comeback at the Los Angeles Games in 2028 after a gap of 128 years, the eight-time Olympic gold medallist has expressed his willingness to represent Jamaica if the opportunity arises.Now 39, Bolt made it clear that while his competitive sprinting days are behind him, his passion for cricket remains strong.
“I am happily retired from professional sport. I haven’t played cricket in a long time, but if they call, I will be ready,” Bolt told Esquire.Bolt’s connection with cricket runs deep and predates his rise as the fastest man on the planet. Growing up in Jamaica, cricket was a major part of his sporting life, and he has often spoken about how close he came to pursuing it professionally before fate intervened.“A cricketer for sure. Yeah, I think if my cricket coach hadn’t said, ‘You know what, go try running,’ I probably would have stuck with cricket, because my dad was a massive cricket fan and that’s all I knew growing up. Cricket, a little bit of football, but all I knew was cricket,” he told PTI last October.He later revealed how a simple suggestion changed sporting history forever.“Well, for me, it was my cricket coach. I was a fast bowler, and my cricket coach kind of saw me running in and he said, ‘You know what, why not try track and field?’ And I tried, and I was really good. I was pretty talented, and that’s something that I just continued.”Bolt’s love for the game resurfaced publicly in 2014 during a viral PUMA face-off challenge with India’s Yuvraj Singh, where he famously ended the exhibition by hitting the final delivery for a six — a moment that delighted fans across sporting worlds.Cricket at LA 2028 will be played in a short, intense format, featuring six teams per gender split into two groups, with the top four progressing to medal matches.As for Bolt, his legacy remains untouchable. He is the most decorated sprinter in history, winning 100m and 200m gold medals at three consecutive Olympics — Beijing 2008, London 2012 and Rio 2016 — before retiring after the 2017 World Championships with eight Olympic gold medals officially to his name.
