Steve Smith, one of cricket’s greatest ever batters, is in the twilight of his legendary cricket career. He has achieved almost everything, but the bright lights of the Los Angeles Olympics keeps him motivated.

Cricket, deemed by some metrics as the world’s second most popular sport, will make an Olympic return after its sole appearance in 1900 featured only Great Britain and host France.

Unsurprisingly, star cricketers are clamouring to be part of the world’s biggest sporting event. It’s an opportunity to perform on the big stage, with the world watching in a turn up for a sport shackled to the British Commonwealth.

Unsurprisingly for the American aficionado, who lives in New York, the 35-year-old Smith is keen to be in Los Angeles – or wherever the cricket competitions take place – even though his chances appear remote.

Smith has been on the outer of the Australian team in the T20 format, his weakest format where his lack of power can get exposed in a game dotted by muscular brutes. But Smith has a goal, even an unlikely one, and he’s not one to shirk a challenge.

After a gruelling Test series against India, Smith let his hair down in the Big Bash League and scored a belligerent century at the top of the order against Perth Scorchers in a reminder of his skills in cricket’s shortest format.

It was after those heroics for his beloved Sydney Sixers, who he plays at a level that he hasn’t matched elsewhere in T20 cricket, that Smith let the cat out of the bag.

“I would like to play at the Olympics, I reckon that would be cool. We’ll see how far I go in terms of long form cricket,” Smith said. “But I am going to play short form cricket for a while I think when I do finish, you never know.”

Smith isn’t the only Australian superstar dreaming of the Olympics. Test captain Pat Cummins has previously publicly revealed his aim of making it to Los Angeles.

“That’d be pretty awesome,” Cummins said last year in the aftermath of the Paris Olympics. “After seeing Paris the last few weeks, I’ve started to get pretty excited about potentially going.

“It hadn’t really been on any of our radars. Four years away, anything can happen so you never quite know. But that’d be awesome to represent Australia in the middle of an Olympics, that’d be special.”

Cummins and Smith are part of a mass of Australian players lured to the American Major League Cricket, the well-heeled T20 franchise tournament.

But India’s star cricketers are not allowed to play in the MLC, or any franchise tournament outside of the money-spinning Indian Premier League, meaning it will be a rare opportunity for them to step on American soil.

Although superstar Virat Kohli, whose enormous following and popularity was used as a selling point in cricket’s Olympic bid, is unlikely to play in Los Angeles having retired from the T20 format at international level.

While it remains to be seen who plays at the Olympics, there are still several unknowns with the men’s and women’s competitions.

Matches might not be played on the west coast – despite the determined efforts from administrators in several cities – and could instead be entirely housed on the other side of the U.S to maximize the massive viewership in India.

The exact number of teams – and the qualification route – is expected to be ironed out this year when the event programme and athlete quotas are finalized for the 2028 Olympics.

As I reported last year, there has been influential support for T20 qualification tournaments – not rankings – determining which countries make the cut.