Master administrator: Jagmohan Dalmiya
He is widely admired for his administrative skills and business acumen and also criticised for alleged wrongdoings during his long tenure at the helm of Indian, and, for a while, Asian and international, cricket.
And just when it seemed that he had passed his sell-by date-BCCI had suspended him from the body he lorded over for more than a decade, forcing him to resign from his pocket borough, CAB-the 67-year-old Jagmohan Dalmiya bounced back via a Calcutta High Court order that stayed the suspension.
Jaguda, as he's called in Kolkata, was in a characteristically combative mood. "My next task will be to clean BCCI and take it out of the jungleraj it is passing through now," he said. "I know how to fight this battle being out of power," he added for good measure.
No one will dispute that. But his real claim to fame and his greatest contribution to cricket has been to turn the game into a multi-billion-dollar global industry. When Dalmiya, an immensely wealthy construction magnate, took over as President of the International Cricket Council in 1997, it had a balance of £37,000 (Rs 22,20,000) in its kitty. When he left the post three years later, it had a surplus of £11 million (Rs 74.8 crore), a 30-fold increase. But he has had his shares of controversies as well. Allegations of financial misdemeanour have followed him over the last few years, though nothing has ever been proved.
Can he make a comeback? It will be a difficult task, but given the man's track record, only the very naïve will answer that emphatically in the negative.
