Jagmohan Dalmiya

infobox_celebrity
name = Jagmohan Dalmiya
birth_date = birth date and age|1940|05|30
birth_place = Calcutta, British India
occupation = co-owner of M.L. Dalmiya & Co.
nationality = Indian
residence = Kolkata, India
spouse =
children = 1 daughter, 1 son

Jagmohan Dalmiya, born in Calcutta, India on May 30, 1940, is a well-known Indian cricket administrator. He studied at the Scottish Church College, Calcutta.

He started his career as a wicketkeeper, playing for cricket clubs (including his college team) in Calcutta and had once made a double-century. He joined his father's firm ML Dalmiya and Co. and made it into one of India's top construction firms. His firm constructed Calcutta's M.P.Birla Planetarium in 1963. He got married to a Bengali lady. Dalmiya’s wife is a daughter of the distinguished Ghosh family of Pathuriaghata. He has a daughter and a son. He also practices pure vegetarianism.

He joined the BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) in 1979, and became its treasurer in 1983 (the year India won the Cricket World Cup) and later, along with Inderjit Singh Bindra helped to win the right to stage the World Cup in South Asia in 1987 and 1996. He has been elected the President of BCCI on numerous occasions. Though initially rejected by many cricket playing nations, despite his winning the ICC Presidential elections by a 25-13 margin in 1996, he was unanimously elected as the chairman of the ICC International Cricket Council a year later in 1997 for a period of three years, a period in which his work greatly helped to enhance the fortunes of ICC.

However, in the later years, he was often accused by the media of taking the cricket players and spectators for granted, thereby not giving much care to the development of the game's infrastructure in India. In the 2005 BCCI board elections, he was ousted by Indian government minister Sharad Pawar as the head cricket official of India. Late the following year, he was expelled from the board for alleged misappropriation of funds refusing to provide certain documents. [http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/india/content/current/story/272911.html] Dalmia challenged the decision and went to the court.

Awards and Recognition

In 2005 he was awarded the International Journal of the History of Sports Achievement award for administrative excellence in global sport.

In 1996, the BBC declared him to be one of the world's top six sports executives. When Australia and West Indies refused to play in terror-scarred Sri Lanka during the 1996 World Cup, he conjured up a united India-Pakistan team in a matter of days to play friendlies against Sri Lanka there. In 1991, when the boycott of South Africa officially ended, he arranged a tour of the South African cricket team in India that went a long way in helping them shed the stigma of apartheid.

In the words of the Australian cricketer Ian Chappell: "He has a vision for the game’s progress that I haven’t heard enunciated by any other so-called leader among cricket officials." [cite news
url = http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=df680445-99b0-40b6-aa7d-051a30821772
title = Jagmohan Dalmiya, the Machiavelli of Indian cricket]

Controversy

On March 26, 2008, he was arrested in connection with misappropriation of BCCI funds and later released on bail. According to the Police charges that he misused Rs. 2.90 crore from a bank account meant for the 1996 World Cup. [cite news
url = http://www.ibnlive.com/news/dalmiya-arrested-for-fund-embezzlement-gets-bail/61993-5.html | title = Dalmiya arrested for fund embezzlement, gets bail of Rs. 25,000| author = cnn-ibn]

References

External links

* [http://www.dalmiya.com/ Dalmiya.com]
* [http://www.telegraphindia.com/1051130/asp/nation/story_5540450.asp At The Telegraph]
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sport/cricket/newsid_733000/733289.stm At BBC]
* [http://content.cricinfo.com/india/content/player/28609.html Profile On Cricinfo]
* [http://www.domain-b.com/people/profiles/20040924_jagmohan_dalmiya.html At Domain-B]