Marketing Birmingham has crossed the boundary with a new campaign to promote the wealth of cricket action being played in the city this summer.

Over the next few weeks Edgbaston will play host to the third nPower Ashes Test Match and the Twenty20 Finals, which are set to lead to tens of thousands of visitors coming to the city.

Now Marketing Birmingham has launched a summer-long campaign to welcome cricket fans to the city, including an online ad that shows www.visitbirmingham.com - the city's official leisure tourism website - being smashed by a boundary-breaking six hit at Edgbaston.

Marketing Birmingham's marketing director Dave Hodgson said: "We're running the advertising campaign online and in national publications like The Daily Telegraph and The Times, and supporting it with a really innovative public relations campaign.

"Birmingham is a premier sporting city - we host more major sporting events than any other city in the country. The Ashes is the biggest event in our 2009 sporting calendar, not least because Edgbaston was where England historically levelled the series by just two runs when it was played here four years ago, setting the foundations for us to win The Ashes back."

According to research by Sport England, action on the track, mat and pitch brings in about £1.5bn to the West Midlands' economy each year. It is estimated that Edgbaston, the "Wembley of cricket" typically brings in £12m a year directly to the Birmingham economy.