Edgbaston can be neutral venue for Pakistan-India bilateral series: Snowball

Warwickshire chief executive believes venue is ideal to host such an event

Warwickshire chief executive Neil Snowball said that Edgbaston is ‘very interested’ in becoming the neutral venue for the Pakistan-India series.

Edgbaston will be hosting the two arch-rivals for the third time this Sunday as part of the International Cricket Council (ICC) Champions Trophy.

While talking to the BBC Sport, Snowball said that venue is an ideal condition to host a future series featuring only Pakistan and India. "We have the experience of handling it," said Snowball. "It is not the sort of game you can take anywhere because it is a completely unique match with a completely unique collection of fans and atmosphere.

"If they wanted this game at a neutral venue, I would hope they would consider Edgbaston. We would be very interested in looking at that."

Both arch-rivals have not faced each other in a bilateral series since 2012-13, even though the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in 2014 to play eight series between 2015-2023.

However, due to political tensions between two countries, the MOU was not enforced, resulting in PCB asking BCCI to pay millions of dollars in compensation.