Its decision, which follows intense discussions between LA and the IOC’s Olympic programme commission, will be officially confirmed at the 141st IOC session in Mumbai, which begins on Sunday.

Cricket has been played once before at an Olympics, in Paris in 1900, when England and France played a single match for the gold medal. But in Los Angeles there will be a T20 men’s and women’s tournament that will open up a potentially lucrative commercial market in the Asian subcontinent.

The Guardian revealed in July that cricket was “very likely” to be in LA, given the IOC’s desire to tap into India’s huge population and financial resources. And while negotiations have not always been easy between the IOC and LA, including cricket makes financial and sporting sense for all sides.

The current Olympic broadcast rights in India are sold for individual Games and reported to be worth just £15.6m ($20m) for Paris 2024. But industry experts have told the Guardian that, depending on the format and the number of guaranteed matches for India, this figure could rise to £150m if cricket was included in Los Angeles.

Meanwhile it is understood that flag football, a five-on-five non-contact sport variant of American football, has also got the nod. That will delight the NFL, which has been pushing for flag football to be included as an Olympic event to grow interest in the game worldwide.

However, where the return of baseball and softball – and the addition of multiple new team sports – leaves the International Olympic Committee’s hard cap of 10,500 athletes for each Olympics unclear. If the Games is not to expand, it may be that other sports are required to cut down their number of medal events.

Guardian