The bidding for the broadcast rights for Indian cricket will enter a third day after an intense round of battle during BCCI’s online auction on Wednesday.

The highest bid at the end of the second day was approximately $925 million (Dh3.3billion) in the global consolidated rights (GCR) category, which includes worldwide TV and digital rights.

That is a substantial jump in value from the previous deal the BCCI had with Star India – $750m (Dh2.7bn). With the auction set to resume on Thursday, the bidding is expected to cross the billion-dollar mark which will be a second such deal for the BCCI within a year after it sold the five-year IPL rights to Star India for $2.55 billion (Dh9.3bn)  in 2017.

The bidding is on for 102 senior men’s team matches. As things stand, the per match value of India’s home matches – rupees 591 million (Dh33m) – has already surpassed the per-match valuation of an IPL game – rupees 545 million (Dh30m). IPL has a lot more matches – 60 per season – resulting in a bigger overall value.

The world’s richest cricketing board put up three categories for sale on Tuesday. The categories are Indian television rights and rest of the world digital rights (GTRVD), digital rights for the Indian subcontinent alone (ID) and the global consolidated rights (GCR).

The three bidders which remain in the fray are Star India, Sony India and Reliance Jio, down from the six including Google and Facebook which had initially shown interest.

The deal will give the broadcaster the rights to 102 matches of the Indian men’s team for a five-year period between June 2018 to March 2023. It will also include the rights for the Indian women’s team as well the domestic matches.