The ECB is still in negotiations for the international cricket mobile phone rights.
The new agreement covers the tours by Sri Lanka and Pakistan in 2006, the visits of West Indies and India in 2007, the tours by Zimbabwe and South Africa in 2008 and the visits of New Zealand and Australia in 2009.
David Morgan, ECB chairman, admitted that "the decision to place live cricket on satellite is an emotive issue for some people" but stressed: "This is a very good deal for cricket. We have financially secured the future of the game.
"The financial element to the deal guarantees cricket's future development, securing the funds needed to continue building a successful England team and to continue nurturing the grass roots of the sport."
A Channel 4 spokesman said: "Channel 4 made a full and substantial offer to try and retain the live rights to test cricket and to ensure that fans would still be able to watch the England cricket team free of charge. We were bidding as much per game this time as under the terms of the last deal, but we've still been substantially outbid by Sky."
