The BCCI chief led new world order in cricket
To understand Jagmohan Dalmiya's contribution legacy, one has to go back to the mid-1980s when India, the cricketing superpower of today, was still a third world player. It was a privilege in those days if the Indian cricket team could play against England or Australia; and suggestions that India could host the World Cup or an Indian administrator could take the top post at the International Cricket Council were dismissed figments of imagination — until Jagmohan Dalmiya, or Jaggu dada, came in and changed the rules of the game forever.
He moved the power centre of cricketing world to India and put India on the map of the cricketing world. In the process, he also made pot loads of money for himself, his organisations, his players, his country and his sport. Jagmohan Dalmiya saw the untapped potential of cricket, not just in India but across the sub-continent, and leveraged it to the hilt. He took down entrenched power structures and revamped the cricket globally.
A teenage Dalmiya's first tryst with the sport as a club cricketer ended prematurely, when he had to move to his family business upon his father's demise. But he returned in 1979, joining the Cricket Association of Bengal, under the Board of Control for Cricket in India — and from there on, there was no looking back. Jagmohan Dalmiya's big win was in 1987, when he, along with then BCCI president NKP Salve and former bureaucrat IS Bindra, brought the World Cup to India for the first time ever. Until then, the prestigious tournament had only been held in England. But while the symbolic value of India and Pakistan jointly hosting the World Cup that year was enormous, it alone wasn't enough to revamp the power structures. For that, the financial equations of the game had to be changed — here, Jagmohan Dalmiya's astute business-sense kicked in.
The Marwari businessman from Kolkata realised th potential in the Indian television audience and fought India's state broadcaster Doordarshan to take ownership of television rights for cricket matches. From 1993 onwards, the BCCI, instead of buying telecast rights from Doordarshan, was able to sell them to the highest bidder. This not only turned around the financial fortunes of the Board, and by extension Indian cricket, but also brought windfalls for the ICC. The Council, for example, made $50 million from the 1996 World Cup, jointly hosted by India, Pakistan and Sri lanka. This also proved that India (and the Asian bloc it led) had the audience and revenue-generation ability that legitimised its position as the new leader of cricket. No surprise then that in 1997, Jagmohan Dalmiya became the first person from all of Asia to be elected ICC chair. Apart from making both BCCI and the ICC financial powerhouses, Jagmohan Dalmiya also helped professionalise Indian cricket. It was during his first term as BCCI president (2001-2004) that cricketers were given proper contracts and pensions.
Jagmohan Dalmiya's second innings was more controversial, with politician Sharad Pawar defeating his presidential nominee in 2005 and the BCCI suspending him in 2006 on allegations of misappropriating funds. The corruption charges were resolved out-of-court in 2010, and Jagmohan Dalmiya made a remarkable comeback to the BCCI's top post in 2013. By then his health was already failing but and his last term lacked his Midas touch. That the BCCI still couldn't find a better candidate than Jagmohan Dalmiya, speaks volumes.