MUMBAI: You never know who  the winner is till the last ball is bowled in an India-Pakistan match. Since this morning most media were reporting that Star India was out of the race to pocket the media rights to the  Board of Control for Cricket in India's (BCCI's) home cricket featuring the Indian team. And that it was a two horse race between Jio and Sony Pictures Networks India.

But the Uday Shankar-headed network  came out of nowhere in a  rapid sprint to the finishing line and breasted the tape to emerge the winner of BCCI's  worldwide media rights sweepstakes. It thus strengthened its hold on television and digital rights to cricket in India, by coughing up a staggering Rs 6138.70 crore for the 2018-23 window.

The broadcaster now holds the two most valuable broadcast rights in cricket, having bought the IPL global media rights for Rs 16,347.50 crore in September 2017 for 2018 to 2022.

The battle for the BCCI home media rights finally ended today with the e-auction coming to a close after a three-way fight between Star India, Sony Pictures Network and Reliance JIO for the past two and half days. The BCCI will formally announce the winner of the rights at 5 pm today.

The penultimate bid at the auction was Rs 6,111.70 crore. The first bid on day three was recorded at Rs 6,085.30 crore. Within minutes, the bid bar was raised by another Rs 26.4 crore.