Jagmohan Dalmiya
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A brief biography
The Times of India, Sep 22 2015
Born May 30, 1940, into a Marwari family in Kolkata
Went to Scottish Church College, Kolkata
Played for Jorabagan and Rajasthan Club as a wicketkeeper-batsman in CAB league
Lost his father at the age of 19 and joined the family's construction firm ML Dalmiya and Co
Married Chandralekha with whom he had two children, daughter Baishali and son Avishek
Made an entry into the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) in 1977 as treasurer
Made a low-key entry into the BCCI in 1979
CAB secretary from 1981-82 to 1984-85
Became BCCI treasurer in 1983
Joined hands with IS Bindra and then BCCI president NKP Salve in 1984 to move the World Cup out of England. The Reliance Cup was co-hosted by India and Pakistan in 1987.
CAB president from 1992 to 2007; 2008-15
Elected BCCI secretary in 1992
Joined hands with Bindra and fought legal battle with Prasar Bharati that paved way for BCCI to sell telecast rights of IndiaEngland series in 1992-93 to TWI for Rs 18 lakh.
Dalmiya and Bindra took on the ICC in a bid to England and Australia's stranglehold on world cricket. In 1996, Dalmiya defeated Australia's Malcolm Gray 23-17 in an election for the ICC chairman's post but was not allowed to head the body as he had fallen short of a 23 majority.
Headed the Pakistan, India, Lanka Committee (PILCOM) which successfully hosted the 1996 World Cup in the subcontinent.
In 1997, became the first ICC president from Asia. When he took charge, the ICC only had £16000 in its coffers. When his term ended in 2000, the ICC had over $15 million.
Became BCCI president in 2001 and held office till 2004.
Tasted his first electoral defeat in 2005 when his candidate Ranbir Mahendra was routed by Sharad Pawar and Co.
Expelled in 2006 by BCCI for alleged financial irregularities pertaining to the 1996 PILCOM funds. Lost CAB top post.
Returned at CAB helm in 2007.
Named “caretaker“ administrator when N Srinivasan stepped aside following the IPL scam in 2013.
Became BCCI president for second time after being elected unopposed in March 2015.
Contribution to cricket
The Times of India, Sep 21 2015
The man who transformed cricket
Born on May 30, 1940, Dalmiya had to join his family's construction business (ML Dalmiya & Sons) at the age of 19 when his father passed away . He graduated from Scottish Church College and was an average club cricketer who turned out in the local league for Jorabagan and Rajasthan Clubs as a keeper-batsman.
Cricket was, however, not his forte and he made his foray into the CAB under the tutelage of former president BN Dutt. Not much is known about Dalmiya's early days in CAB but old-timers do recollect that the young Marwari boy was very good with numbers and had an uncanny ability to read the fine print. It was not until 1979 that Dalmiya surfaced on the national scene in the BCCI, but within four years he had managed to get himself elected as the treasurer. The same year -1983 -saw India win the World Cup for the first time but a cashstrapped BCCI was hard-pressed to reward its heroes.
Over the next decade and half, Dalmiya fought grimly to turn around the Board's fortunes. He found a great ally in the thenpresident IS Bindra and the duo spearheaded the campaign to bring the 1987 World Cup to India.It also marked the entry of big sponsorship with Reliance stepping up to the plate. The duo next fought a bitter battle in court to end Prasar Bharti's hegemony over telecast rights.
Bindra and Dalmiya changed that and sold the telecast rights of the India-England series in 199293 to TWI for around Rs 18 lakh. This singular achievement changed the face of Indian cricket and more money kept pouring in than the BCCI could handle.
Bolstered by their success on the domestic front, Dalmiya and Bindra took on the ICC and fought a bitter battle to end England and Australia's stranglehold on cricket's world governing body . In 1996, Dalmiya defeated Australia's Malcolm Gray 23-17 in an election for the chairman's post, but was not allowed to head the body as he had fallen short of a two third majority . However, he was not to be denied next year and he became the first ICC president from Asia in 1997 and went on to become one of the most successful, even though controversial, administrators of all time.
When he took charge in 1997, the ICC only had £16000 in its coffers and when Dalmiya's term ended in 2000, the ICC had over $15 million in its kitty . Dalmiya became BCCI president in 2001 and held office till 2004. This stint was marked by several controversies and ended on a farcical note in 2004 when Dalmiya used his casting vote to deny Sharad Pawar following a 15-15 tie in the BCCI presidential poll.
The following year, Dalmiya tasted his first electoral defeat as his candidate -Ranbir Mahendra -was routed by Pawar and Co. Dalmiya himself came under scrutiny and was expelled in 2006 by the BCCI for alleged financial irregularities pertaining to the 1996 PILCOM funds. Consequently he lost the CAB's top post as well. But Dalmiya fought back and got a reprieve from the court.He won a bitter election in 2007 against former Kolkata Police chief Prasun Mukherjee and returned at the helm of the CAB, victorious by five votes.
He generally kept a low profile in the BCCI after that but played his cards well enough to be named “interim“ administrator when N Srinivasan stepped aside following the IPL scam in 2013.
As the BCCI President
Kunal Pradhan
March 5, 2015
Dalmiya's dramatic comeback 10 years later shows the BCCI just doesn't learn
Jagmohan DalmiyaInside the dark corridors of power inhabited by the high and mighty of the Board of Control for Cricket India (BCCI), there is a saying that 'the harder you fall, the higher you bounce'. But even the smart alec who appropriated this adage from a faux Confucius-style Chinese proverb would not have accounted for the rise, fall, disappearance into oblivion, and phoenix-like resurrection of Jagmohan Dalmiya.
For someone like me who followed the machinations of Indian cricket closely in the late 1990s and early 2000s, it once seemed Dalmiya's mischievous grin, and the glint in his eyes as he tackled a series of difficult situations, would continue to rule Indian cricket forever. Back then he was a physical manifestation of everything that was wrong with how the sport was run-the lack of transparency, the honorary office-bearers who revelled in their titles rather than their performance, and the tyranny of favours that kept the flock together. If BCCI was the Death Star, Dalmiya was Darth Vader.
But while India saw him as a symbol of the Establishment, for the rest of the cricket world, run from the posh Long Room at Lord's or the airy balconies of the Melbourne Cricket Ground, Dalmiya was not just an outsider; he was a usurper. As India woke up to its potential as cricket's premier economic power, defiantly taking on the ICC at the drop of a hat and licking its lips in anticipation of the next opportunity to fling the gauntlet, Dalmiya was seen by the international media as an icon of India's designs of world domination. He was not a 'Lord' or a 'Sir', he was Jagguda-a Marwari builder who once kept wickets for Rajasthan Club in the Calcutta maidans and cricket's old gentry would not have that. They wanted to give him "a jolly good boot up his derriere, preferably into the Indian Ocean". But contrary to his perception of being a madman in the quest for absolute power, Dalmiya was shrewder, more charming, and more flexible, than the rest of the world realised. His mission to globalise cricket could not be argued with. And his hold over the Associate members, coupled with his ability to convince the original members that, like it or not, cricket's financial future lay in the East, transformed the sport forever.
Dalmiya's fatal flaw, as with most tragic heroes, was that while he was reaching for the stars above, he did not realise that the ladder was being pulled from under his feet. He had made Indian cricket so big so suddenly that other interested parties could no longer let him keep it all for himself. What followed was his removal in 2005 at the hands of Sharad Pawar and his underlings led by the now-ostracised Lalit Modi. As Dalmiya battled court cases, criminal proceedings and smear campaigns, he became persona non grata in the BCCI -destined to crawl into his cave until the people who had knocked him over would, eventually but inevitably, turn on each other. So almost 10 years later, when Indian cricket is going through another churning following the Mudgal Committee report and a Supreme Court order cutting its overbearing lord and master N. Srinivasan down to size, almost by default Dalmiya has stepped into the spotlight once more. Now 74, slower and less boisterous than he was in his heyday, it's ironic that he has emerged as the messiah at a time when Indian cricket needs to be saved from a culture he had himself created. The conflicts of interest and financial muddle overseen by Srinivasan & Co is just the worst-case scenario of a system that Dalmiya had put in place. The only difference, perhaps, was that while he understood 'cricket' was more important than 'control' in the BCCI abbreviation, his successors somehow forgot that.
While he may have been slightly better than those who followed him, Dalmiya's return to the helm only takes Indian cricket back to square one. It is a remarkable story of perseverance and discretion in valour, considering he has been nominated by roughly the same set of people who had ousted him, but it also means that there is little hope for the BCCI-an unscrupulous, insular behemoth that laughs in the face of reform and cocks a snook at transparency. A new culture can be put in place only by new people who think differently. A cricket board where faces never change, only circumstances do, will forever be doomed to opaqueness and tyranny.
‘Made Indian domestic cricket competitive and stable’
The Times of India, Sep 27 2015
Sunil Gavaskar Cricket lost one of its most transformational administrators with Jagmohan Dalmiya's de Jagmohan Dalmiya's demise. Dalmiya was a rare brand of official who not only understood the game off the field but also truly loved it. It is never easy to be a fan of the game after becoming an official since the demands of the job can become all consuming but he did it with ease. When you met him at work, he would be looking at the TV monitor in his office to keep a track of what was happening and would be quick to comment on the situation out in the middle. It was under his stewardship that the BCCI began to realise the potential of the game in India and the impact it could have on the world game. He opened up revenue streams that were unheard of before.
In the cricketing context he encouraged the change in format of the Ranji Trophy from a zonal competition --in which teams from a zone that did not qualify for the knockouts hardly played elsewhere -to a more competitive one where the top teams played each other in different parts of the country and thus got more exposure and experience.
That it has benefitted Indian cricket can be seen by the way the Indian cricket team went on to become the No. 1 Test team in the world and also winning the various ICC events. He, thus, transformed the game in India, made it more competitive as well as financially stable.
At the ICC, it was he who conceived the idea of the Champions Trophy to be played two years after the ICC World Cup and that helped generate enormous funds for the body which could then distribute it to other associate members too.
Kerry Packer was one who transformed the sport with his vision of limitedovers cricket in coloured clothes and under floodlights with the white ball and with field restrictions. Dalmiya too deserves recognition for the way he transformed the game internationally too.
There being no international game played last week there is no CEAT International Cricketer of the Week but one could say that Dalmiya was the CEAT international administrator for all times
Breaking DD’s cricket monopoly
The Times of India, Sep 22 2015
IS Bindra
Jaggu helped break DD's cricket telecast monopoly
I remember today my long innings with Jagmohan Dalmiya from 1980-1996, when we worked together to lay the solid foundations of Indian cricket and built it into a global powerhouse. In 1984, under the leadership of NKP Salve, we moved the World Cup out of England to give South Asian cricket fans the excitement and glory of the 1987 Reliance World Cup. We succeeded in eliminating the English and Australian stranglehold on global cricket and made the International Cricket Council (ICC) a truly representative and democratic global polity . Those were also the days when we earnestly laid the foundations of making Indian cricket the commercial force it is today by breaking the monopoly of Doordarshan as the sole broadcaster of Indian cricket.
This was not as easy as it looks today . It took patience, perseverance and mental strength to fight the monopoly all the way up to the Supreme Court of India. The Court issued a landmark judgment in 1994 which catalyzed the satellite broadcasting industry in India.
Indian cricket was further strengthened in 1994 when we successfully won the right to host the second World Cup in the subcontinent. The 1996 World Cup introduced many elements of global marketing to Indian cricket. As such it set the stage for what is a given in this day and age of Indian cricket.
Jaggu's passion, energy and dedication was instrumental in achieving this all. He was an able cricket administrator and I, along with millions of cricket lovers around the world, salute his commitment and dedication to the game.
