NEW DELHI: Usain Bolt's love for cricket has never been a secret, but the greatest track and field athlete of all time has dropped a big hint about playing the sport professionally - a development that will surely excite fans of the Jamaican sprint legend.

The eight-time Olympic gold medallist has expressed a desire to play cricket professionally at the 2028 Los Angeles Games, where the sport is set to return to the Olympic fold after a gap of 128 years. Bolt made it clear that if he is asked, he is ready to step onto the cricket field for the Jamaica team.

"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, 39, told Esquire in an interview.

Bolt revealed that cricket was his first sporting love and that he might have continued with the game if not for the intervention of his cricket coach.

"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 old PTI last October.

"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."

Back in 2014, Bolt's passion for cricket grabbed headlines when he teamed up with Yuvraj Singh for a high-profile exhibition match during the PUMA Face-Off Challenge. The sprint legend capped the contest in style by smashing a six off the final delivery, adding yet another memorable moment to his long-standing love affair with the sport.

Bolt's record-breaking career

Bolt won eight Olympic gold medals and 11 World Championship titles, establishing a level of dominance rarely seen in sport. Bolt achieved the historic 100m, 200m double at three straight Olympic Games - Beijing 2008, London 2012 and Rio 2016.

Bolt also holds the record for the fastest 100m time, clocking 9.58 seconds at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin. He also owns the Olympic 100m record of 9.63 seconds, set at the London Games.