NEW DELHI, INDIA: Top telecommunications firm Bharti Airtel has won the rights to sponsor all cricket series played in India until 2013 and will pay $700,000 per match, a cricket board official said on Friday.

"Bharti Airtel has won the series sponsorship rights for the period of 2010-2013 with a bid amount of 33.3 million rupees per test/ODI/T20 International," Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) Secretary, N Srinivasan, said in a terse statement.

Initially, 10 firms had shown an interest in the right but eventually only four – Bharti, Idea Cellular, Karbonn Mobile and MicroMax –  submitted bids on Thursday.

The marketing committee of the BCCI, the world's richest cricket board, opened the bids in Mumbai on Friday and awarded the rights to Bharti Airtel.

World Sports Group is the current holder of the rights.

BCCI chief administrative officer Ratnakar Shetty was earlier quoted in the media as saying the cricket board had set a reserve price of 20 million rupees per match.