TV deal saves Ind-SA series
Afp, Mumbai
The India-South Africa one-day series will go ahead as scheduled next month after the Indian cricket board wriggled out of a broadcast wrangle Thursday.The three-match series in Northern Ireland had been thrown into doubt Wednesday after rights holder Zee Television pulled out of a deal to broadcast matches involving India at neutral venues, citing differences with the board. The series will now be broadcast by Mumbai-based Nimbus Sports, who already hold the rights to all international matches in India until 2010. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) said Nimbus would pay 6.05 million dollars per match for the series to be played on June 26, 29 and July 1 in Belfast. "We have come to a solution and we are going forward with Nimbus," BCCI vice president Lalit Modi told a press conference. The matches in Belfast are part of the BCCI's plan to play 25 one-day internationals at offshore venues over a five-year period, for which Zee had bought the rights for 219 million dollars. The first event was held in September last year when India took on world champions Australia and the West Indies in Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur. Zee said it had scrapped the entire five-year deal because the Indian board was not willing to negotiate a revised price after a government directive to share the TV feed for all India matches with state-run broadcaster Doordarshan.
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