BCCI president Jagmohan Dalmiya dies aged 75

The ICC on Sunday condoled the sudden death of BCCI president Jagmohan Dalmiya, saying “cricket has has lost a very experienced and seasoned administrator” in him. He had been hospitalised since Thursday following a cardiac arrest.

Jagmohan Dalmiya, the Indian cricket board president and former global Cricket Council chief, has died.

Mr. Dalmiya had been physically incapacitated for a long while with a considerable measure of illnesses and was not effectively taking any part in the BCCI’s regular activity. On March 2015, Dalmiya became the president of the BCCI again after a 10-year gap. But he has been ailing since then, and his health has deteriorated further over the last few weeks.

Health was an issue ever since he began his third term as president back in March of this year.

When Indian cricket was slowly expanding its wings of supremacy following Kapil Dev and his team’s remarkable World Cup victory in 1983 defeating West Indies, a Marwari Kolkata businessman had joined the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).

At an early stage of his administrative career, he understood the value of making money, from advertisements between the overs to on-field sponsors, Dalmiya was instrumental in playing out every such initiative.

Dalmiya was admitted to hospital in Kolkata three days ago after complaining of chest pain. A year later in 2007 he made a comeback as president of Cricket Association of Bengal.

India’s prime minister Narendra Modi said on his Twitter account: “My thoughts are with the family of Shri Jagmohan Dalmiya in this hour of grief”.

He first shot to fame when he, along with bureaucrat Inderjit Singh Bindra, broke Australia and England’s hold on the ICC to win the right to host the 1987 and 1996 World Cups on the sub-continent. There were dissenting voices in the BCCI about his failing health and recently there were calls to remove him from the post of president. With Dalmiya’s influence, the game went on to attract a of advertisers and subsequently expanded the coffers of the BCCI. Dalmiya was later banned from any affairs of the BCCI and was accused of misappropriation of funds but was later cleared by the court. “His guidance and passion was huge “, he said.