What new sports are in the Commonwealth Games?

More than 5000 athletes from 72 nations will compete for 280 gold medals in 20 sports this year.Channel 7 holds the exclusive broadcast rights to the Commonwealth Games and the coverage will be spread across the network’s free-to-air channels — 7 and 7mate.The 7Plus app will have up to 30 live and replay channels to ensure you don’t miss a moment of the action.Three new sports have been introduced for the Birmingham Games, and Australia are red-hot favourites to win gold in one of them.Women’s cricketCricket will make it’s long-awaited return to the Commonwealth Games this year, with a women’s T20 competition involving eight nations. All matches will be hosted at Edgbaston Cricket Ground.Australia are favourites to win the gold medal, with Meg Lanning’s powerhouse side the reigning T20 World Cup champions.The Aussies will face Barbados, India and Pakistan in the group stage before a finals series to decide the medal recipients.Cricket has not featured in the Commonwealth Games since 1998, when Australia won a silver medal playing men’s 50-over cricket.3x3 basketballAfter making its Olympic debut in Tokyo last year, 3x3 basketball will also feature at the Commonwealth Games for the first time in Birmingham.There will be 112 competitors fighting for four gold medals — men’s, women’s, men’s wheelchair and women’s wheelchair.Australia, Canada and England are the only nations contesting for medals in all four categories.Para table tennis Lastly, table tennis has included a para sport category to its program for the 2022 Commonwealth Games.A total of 32 para athletes, 16 per gender, will compete for gold in four events — men’s singles C3–5, men’s singles C8–10, women’s singles C3–5 and women’s singles C6–10.The table tennis competitions will be take place at Solihull’s National Exhibition Centre, along with the badminton, boxing, netball, para powerlifting and weightlifting.Last year’s Olympics in Tokyo was a great time zone for sport-loving Aussies — but it’s a very different situation with Birmingham for the Games that run from July 28 to August 9.The event will kick off with the opening ceremony on Thursday July 28 at 8pm Birmingham time — which is 5am AEST on Friday July 29.The ceremony will run for three hours, meaning interested Aussie fans can enjoy the festivities with breakfast.The closing ceremony will bring an end to proceedings on August 8 local time — which is August 9 Down Under. Via news.com.au — Australia’s leading news site https://www.news.com.au