Locked in a two-way battle with Bharti Airtel, Sahara's bid was way above the Rs 2.89 crore per match offer made by the telecom giant. The amount offered by Sahara could earn BCCI anything between Rs 481 crore to Rs 558 crore in the next three years depending on the number of matches India plays.

Sahara's original contract with the BCCI expired last year after the company spent Rs 400 crore over a four-year period for team sponsorship. They came to the BCCI's rescue when no bids were received for the team sponsorship six months ago and continued their support for the period. Their renewed contract was to expire next month.

Under the existing contract, Sahara was paying Rs 1.9 crore per Test, Rs 2.08 crore per ODI and Rs 1.56 crore per Twenty20 International, the BCCI said. The two were the only firms left in the fray, although four others including electronic giants Videocon, had also purchased the bid form.

Sahara and Airtel submitted the requisite security deposit of Rs 50 crore along with the form at the end of deadline while the other firms excused themselves from the race due to the steep base price of Rs 2.5 crore per match. The Cricket Board had published a tender notice calling for bids for the Indian men's team, women's team, India A squad and the under 19 squad and the deadline to submit security deposit ended yesterday.

Earlier, the IPL and Sahara India Pariwar were involved in a long term partnership for the exciting IPL awards. The partnership for the awards is initially for a period of 3 years and the awards will be called 'Sahara IPL Awards'. The inaugural Sahara IPL Awards night was hosted by none other than Karan Johar, and joined by special guest co-host, Shah Rukh Khan at the Grand Hyatt in Mumbai.

As the sponsor of Indian Cricket and Hockey, Sahara India Pariwar, also adopted Indian Boxing, Wrestling and Archery and very recently, Indian Shooting in addition to covering support of a total of 56 sportsmen in these four games until after London Olympics 2012.

The Sahara group will benefit a lot out of this sponsorship. India is the number one ranked test team in the world and a few good performances in the coming months and a One Day World Cup at home should see the sponsors get good returns on their investments.

But there are cries that BCCI is only a money making body and will not be bothered a bit even if there are no sponsors for the women's cricket team, India A and Under-19 team. These team playing matches do not bring money into BCCI coffers and with IPL every year, there is least coverage in the media for these matches. The men's team is obviously the most profitable for the board.