The plans include increasing capacity to 38,500, building a new academy and installing retractable floodlights. A luxury hotel, residential development and improvements to the ground's library and museum were also included.
The Marylebone Cricket Club's deputy chief executive, David Batts, said: “We are keen to maintain and maybe increase the level of international cricket played here. We have our schedule of Test matches and one-day internationals and we know from the players that they enjoy playing here. We also know that we can't satisfy demand so increasing the capacity would help with that. The success of international cricket here at Lord's provides income for the game so as long as there are two visiting countries here, we would expect to maintain that".
The Rose Bowl in Hampshire and Sophia Gardens in Cardiff are currently pushing for regular Test cricket and officials at Lord's are well aware of the need to keep on moving forward. Lord's has hosted Test matches since 1884. Bids to stage Test cricket from 2010 onwards are set to be declared to the England & Wales Cricket Board.
