After Indian skipper Rohit Sharma put forward a suggestion in a recent interview, representatives of multiple England stadiums showed interest in hosting the bilateral Test series between Pakistan and India, a British daily reported on Monday.
According to The Telegraph, iconic venues such as Lord’s, The Oval, and Edgbaston have shown interest in hosting the fierce rivals.
Representatives from Lord’s, as well as the counties of Surrey and Warwickshire informed the publication that they believe they could serve as hosts.
Both Surrey’s chief executive, Steve Elworthy, and Warwickshire’s chief executive, Stuart Cain, have expressed their support for plans to host the India and Pakistan matches at their respective grounds.
The suggestion was put forward after India’s captain, Rohit Sharma, mentioned in an interview with the Club Prairie Fire podcast that it would be awesome for India to play Pakistan in a Test match hosted by a neutral country.
“It’ll be a good contest, especially if you play overseas conditions. They’re [Pakistan] a good team. They have got a superb bowling lineup… At the end of the day, we want to be in a contest and I think it will be a great contest between the two sides.
“We anyway play them in ICC trophies, so it doesn’t matter. It’s just pure cricket that I’m looking at. I’m not interested in anything else. It’s pure cricket, the game between bat and ball. It’ll be a great contest,” he added.
India and Pakistan last competed in a Test match in the 2007/08 season and their last bilateral white-ball series was in 2012/13, when Pakistan visited India for an ODI and T20I series.
Currently, the two nations only face each other in events like the Asia Cup and global tournaments, including the 50-over World Cup, where India triumphed over Pakistan on home turf last year, and the T20 World Cup.
The Indian government currently does not endorse bilateral matches against Pakistan due to significant political tensions between the two nations.
