BBC SPORT | Cricket | England | ECB ponders neutral plan

The prospect of England acting as a neutral venue for one-day games involving India and Pakistan appears to have increased following the success of the NatWest Series.

The three games between India and Sri Lanka at Edgbaston, the Oval and Bristol all attracted big crowds and England and Wales Cricket Board chief executive Tim Lamb told the BBC: "The atmosphere at the matches has been really colourful and vibrant."

He confirmed that the ECB had given "serious thought" to staging neutral games in England.

"We nearly persuaded India and Pakistan to play some neutral one-day internationals a couple of years ago and we did offer to stage some one-day games between Pakistan and Australia a few weeks ago, bearing in mind the cancellation of that tour," said Lamb.

"We think we could certainly make a success of staging neutral one-day internationals in this country, not least because of the sort of cosmopolitan cricket audience we've got."

Oval experiment

Cricket World Cup games in 1999 were well supported by Asian supporters living in England.

Wasim Akram talks to Surrey president John Major
Wasim enjoyed the atmosphere at the Oval

And the following year, The Oval attracted a crowd of 18,500 for a one-off match between an Asian XI and the Rest of the World.

It prompted Pakistani all-rounder Wasim Akram to suggest the idea of unofficial 'Test' matches between the two teams.

"We really mixed in well. You would see the Pakistani and Indians waving flags next to each other, and joking with each other.

"These games will definitely get the relationships going," he said at the time.

Neutral 'Tests' are not on the ECB's agenda, but officials at Lord's are well aware that one-day games could be be a source of extra revenue.

Sponsors boost

ECB chief executive Tim Lamb
Lamb: Ready to exploit a new opportunity

Almost 200,000 tickets were sold for the NatWest Series, and the crowds have been treated to some excellent cricket.

"Ticket surplus - the revenue from that comes a poor third in comparison to broadcasting and sponsorship revenue, but nonetheless we have exceeded budget.

"The sponsors are pretty happy with what they've seen because we're very close now to renewing the sponsorship for a further three years. so that's all very encouraging as well," said Lamb.

Next year's triangular series featuring South Africa and Zimbabwe will be harder to sell, although England also have three early season one-dayers against Pakistan.

The neutral idea has the support of England's chairman of selectors, David Graveney, who said the passion and noise generated by the crowds for the Sri Lanka v India matches had been a "great advert" for cricket.

"It may be the way to go forward. It's a competitive sporting market - if we can keep cricket on the back pages of the papers, that would be great," he added.