Hampshire chairman Rod Bransgrove believes that The Rose Bowl's floodlit debut has boosted its chances of staging Test cricket.

A record Rose Bowl crowd of nearly 20,000 watched England lose by just two runs to Sri Lanka in last night's Twenty 20 international under the new £500,000 floodlights.

And Bransgrove spent much of the day talking to England and Wales Cricket Board chairman David Morgan for the first time since the ECB's controversial decision to award an Ashes Test to Cardiff, before speaking confidently about the future.

Bransgrove said: "I'm over the moon, especially now it's over. The lights were stunning, the match went to the last ball, so I would say the day has been other than the result a 100 per cent success.

"I have spent a lot of time with David Morgan and I'm still quite confident that we will get it right.

"We've had very long, constructive discussions and have spoken about our ambitions, accreditation, allocation and the wicket this year and I still feel very confident for the future and that we'll get where we want to be.

"The Rose Bowl has done itself no harm at all over the whole of the last week.

"The wicket for the match against Nottinghamshire last week, which was also televised, has shown people that we can produce very, very good four-day wickets.

"And I think today we have shown everybody that if you want theatre in cricket there is only one place to go to."

Hampshire had informed Eastleigh Borough Council that the floodlights would be turned off at 10.30pm so Bransgrove's only concern was a serious injury to Ed Joyce and pitch invasions by three male streakers which delayed the finish until 10.35pm. It meant a call had to be made to the Council.

Bransgrove added: "We were ready on the telephone and there was dialogue because it was very touch and go.

"But, at the end of the day, we weren't far out and I'm pretty certain the council will not be too worried about the extra three or four minutes.

"The only thing we couldn't do was keep the lights on for the after-match presentation, which is a shame, but I still think everyone went home happy."

The Park & Ride scheme was also a success, as it was for last year's Twenty20 international against Australia, but there were delays for those leaving by car last night.

But Bransgrove added: "There were no problems that I heard. The access to the ground was excellent, nobody had to wait more than 15 minutes to get in.

"Obviously the difference with people leaving is that everybody leaves at the same time and we did make some announcements for those people that wanted to move their cars out that they had to wait 15 minutes before the pedestrian traffic moved out of the way.

"But it's going to take 20-30 minutes to get your car out after a major event and I don't think anyone is really going to complain too much about that."