• The Australian, Tuesday, October 3, 2006 11:45 AM

India will bid to secure the International Cricket Council's global media and marketing rights to the game for the next eight years. "We have successfully sold our own rights, and I am confident we can do well with the global rights also," says Niranjan Shah, the secretary for Board of Control for Cricket in India. " We have informed the ICC of our intention." The group's current $550 million deal for seven years is with Global Cricket Corp., a venture owned by Rupert Murdoch's News International, but it expires after next year's World Cup in the Caribbean. The new pact, until 2015, covers 18 ICC tournaments, including two World Cups, three Champions Trophies and the various world championships. A bid is expected to cost more than $1 billion, and the Indian board--one of the richest cricket entities in the world--secured $612 million for its own marketing rights for the next four years from Mumbai-based Nimbus Corporation.

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