Edgbaston Cricket Ground is already plotting an Indian summer after making waves on the subcontinent with the first major sporting final ever held in the city.
The Birmingham home of Warwickshire County Cricket Club won plaudits for the atmosphere at the ICC Champions Trophy final on Sunday – and attracted tens of thousands of Indian fans.
Chief executive Colin Povey said the stadium had bid to host a Twenty20 match which would see finalists England and India pitted against each other in Birmingham once again next year.
Meanwhile, the club is set for a fresh push to encourage the city’s Indian and Pakistani population to return for Warwickshire matches.
Mr Povey said Edgbaston had bid for the Twenty20 match, as well as a one-day game against Australia in 2015, after they were handed back by Durham.
He said: “We will hear in the next two or three weeks about two games returned by Durham for 2014 and 2015, and we are bidding for those and very hopeful.
“Having seen what we did on Sunday that must have done our chances of the India game the world of good.”
Birmingham enjoyed a financial boost from the Champions Trophy, with expected attendance at Edgbaston across the tournament exceeding expectations of about 100,000 by 10,000.
As a result, the £12.6 million economic impact to the region was estimated to have risen to £15.5 million.
Meanwhile, the city hosted Ten Sports, one of India’s largest broadcasters with about 500 million viewers, and a film promoting the city entitled This is Birmingham was seen by an estimated one billion people across 220 countries.
Mr Povey said Edgbaston was expecting 60 per cent of supporters for Sunday’s final to be Indian, based on ticket purchasing data, but on the day it was significantly more.
The date for the 2014 Twenty20 game handed back by Durham has not been set, but would likely be after India visit for a Test series next year.
Meanwhile, Edgbaston starts bidding for matches from 2017 to 2019 in the coming weeks, which includes Ashes and India test matches and two global cricket events taking place in the UK.
It might also include the World Test Championships, which would pit the four top Test-playing nations against each other, in 2017 – although Mr Povey said involvement from the subcontinent would again be key.
He said: “The reality of that tournament is that India would have to be in the top four in order for it to have commercial viability.”
He added: “We have got global cricket tournaments that England and Wales are due to host in the next five years so in terms of putting down a marker for having the final here, and away from Lords, it was important.
“There was a global television audience and all the teams have gone away thrilled, and the feedback from the sponsors has been great.”
Meanwhile, Mr Povey said Edgbaston would analyse data from Champions Trophy ticket purchasers with a view to enhancing Warwickshire crowds in the future.
He said: “We were trying to show that Edgbaston and Birmingham was a place you want to be for these games and we more than achieved that.
“We got fantastic support, particularly for India and Pakistan, where we have got big local populations with those ethnic backgrounds.
“The ticket is to get those back and getting behind Warwickshire and to the Twenty20 over the summer.”
