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Lord's goes to Bollywood!

Ml Cricket

INTERNET, London
The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has placed its faith in Indian film-making as cricket this summer braces for a head-on battle with football's World Cup.
With events in Japan and South Korea set to devour crowd figures at England matches staged at that time, the ECB has turned to Bollywood.
At selected Test venues throughout the World Cup and beyond, car parks will be turned into drive-ins featuring the cream of films from the subcontinent.
John Read, director of corporate affairs at the ECB, told the British Broadcasting Corporation that the tours of Sri Lanka and India have to be marketed aggressively if cricket is not to be put in the shade by football.
"Cricket is in an extremely diffi-
cult position in this early part of the summer in that the focus of the sporting public is on football and still will be for some time," Read said.
"With the World Cup getting closer by the day, people are concentrating on that and in a way are just getting used to cricket again.
"We must market it properly to get people to the cricket and the tours of Sri Lanka and India provide a great opportunity to link cricket to popular culture.
"Indian cinema is at a vibrant stage at the moment and we hope that showing Bollywood movies can enhance people's experience at the game."
The ECB's long-standing fears that attendance figures for Test matches involving Sri Lanka would be affected by the World Cup have been vindicated by poor pre-sales.
Unusually, there are still tickets available for the first day of the first Test at Lord's and bookings for the first three days at Old Trafford, venue of the third Test, continue to be slow.
To counter that, Read and his staff sought the advice of leading members of the Sri Lankan and Indian community.
The result is a new and innovative approach to increase turnstile figures and force cricket into the spotlight.
"We realise this is slightly unusual but we are in a position at the moment where we have to work very hard to attract people to the game.
"It's a big challenge for us and all marketing decisions have been made with the consumer in mind.
"It all links in quite nicely and has presented us with a great opportunity to promote Asian art and culture.
"The Sri Lankan and Indian communities are large ones in this country and we want to see them at the cricket this summer," Read said.
The ECB will know if their plan is a blockbuster or a bomb when the first frame is screened at Edgbaston during the second Test.