Bidding for the television rights to cover English cricket closes tonight, with pundits predicting that the BBC will reclaim the sport, possibly even at a knockdown price less than the £52 million a year agreed by Channel 4 when it snatched it from under the noses of the Beeb in 2001, ending half a century of coverage by the corporation.

Cricket chiefs at Lord's, while recognising that C4's coverage has introduced a number of useful technical innovations, are anxious to take Test matches back to a channel where it can be guaranteed uninterrupted coverage to as broad an audience as possible. The BBC, with its two terrestrial channels, is the obvious candidate.

Recently, even during an outstandingly successful summer for the England cricket team, the England & Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has received complaints from viewers about interruptions to coverage for advertisement breaks and horse racing, while the move from the traditional 11am start to the day's play - mainly to ensure that TV coverage ended before the scheduled C4 News at 7pm - has also proved unpopular.

Using the Film4 digital channel to offer continuous, uninterrupted coverage has failed to staunch the loss of viewers. "The feeling is that with the BBC, we would not have to worry so much about breaking away from the play for the news, Countdown or Hollyoaks," one Lord's insider said.

The new deal will run from 2006 - missing next summer's much awaited Ashes tour by Australia - and is to last three years.

While some commentators have suggested that the BBC could bid as much as £60 million a year to recover the rights to English Test cricket, insiders at the BBC's sports department are more sceptical and believe they might win back the rights at a bargain price.

They point out that when C4 won the cricket rights, it was a fluke by the then C4 head of sport, Mike Miller. "Mike and his team went through the process of putting together a bid document, almost just to get used to the exercise," a source involved in the previous bid told Times Online. "They never thought they had a chance of winning."

Within a few months, Miller had moved to become head of sport at the BBC, inheriting many problems of his own creation through the loss of the cricket contract.

"It was almost as if the ECB had wanted to teach the BBC a lesson. And it might just be that the lesson has been learned now."

In the four years since, C4, which once included American football, Italian Serie A soccer and the Tour de France in its "alternative" portfolio, has all but abandoned sport, with just cricket and horse racing remaining.

Given C4's apparent antipathy towards sport, the likelihood that neither ITV nor Five will place a strong bid, and the ECB's desire for a strong presence on terrestrial television, it may not be necessary for the BBC to break the bank.

"We're under some pressure as clearly viewers would like to see it back on the BBC," Peter Salmon, the BBC's present head of sport, said last week.."They don't like the adverts. Cricket authorities would like a bigger market for their rights. Fine, but can we do it well and can we afford it?"

The BBC's annual sports budget is around £350 million a year, although much of that is already earmarked for Match of the Day football coverage and expensive, non-annual events, such as the Olympics and football's World Cup.

Under the existing contract, BSkyB has exclusive rights to one Test match per summer, plus one-day internationals and county cricket coverage, and it is expected that the satellite broadcaster - an associate company of News International - will be involved in the final mix of the deal once again.

With the growth of digital television, especially during the period of the contract in the run-up to the Government's analogue TV turn-off in 2010, it is not impossible that winning the cricket contract could revitalise the BBC's mothballed plans for a dedicated sports channel (American broadcaster ESPN this week announced that it is to launch a sports channel in Europe to meet a growing demand).

On the same principle, ITV may be considering some sort of offer, with a view to showing cricket on ITV2 or the planned ITV3. That, however, may not be entirely acceptable in terms of viewership reach to the ECB officials, for whom boosting cricket's diminishing profile is as important as hard cash.

Times Recommends

• Lies and cover-up at MG Rover exposed by report
• High oil prices push manufacturing costs up
• Primark founder steps down as chief executive