Jagmohan Dalmiya, President of BCCI, great friend and well-wisher of Bangladesh Cricket has breathed his last on Sunday night at BM Birala Hospital Kolkata.
We on behalf of cricket community of Bangladesh like to record our sincerest respect to the soul of the great cricket personality and express our solidarity with the bereaved family.
We know heaps of praise will be showered on him from every nook and corner of cricket world; many will be over enthusiastic to express how near and close to him. But the truth is that world cricket will feel his absence very deeply at a moment when over commercialization is tending to kill the inherent beauty and grace of the game.
Traditional cricket fraternity is threatened from big brotherly dominance of three musketeers. Even some lower ranked ICC full member teams are suffering from the step motherly attitude of a section of shallow thinking ICC bigwigs.
The deceased had been admitted after suffering a heart attack on Thursday. He was 75 and had faced concerns around his health since starting his second term as president in March.
The latest information states that Dalmiya’s body will be taken to the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) headquarters at Eden Gardens on Monday afternoon for the public to pay their respects.
Dalmiya had a chequered career as cricket organizer and administrator. His career with cricket started way back in 1979 with Cricket association of Bengal. He served earlier as BCCI president and rose to the pinnacle as ICC president. It was during his term as ICC president Bangladesh got full test status. He was all along a true trusted friend of ICC.
Even the phenomenal rise of Indian cricket as financial power house of world cricket owes a lot to this worthy son of India.
"As a visionary and a father figure of Indian cricket, Dalmiya worked towards the development of the game of cricket in India. The cricketing fraternity will miss him dearly," said BCCI secretary Anurag Thakur.
"Dalmiya played a significant part in positioning Indian cricket at the global level and the astute administrator in him, guided Indian cricket to greater heights. His untiring efforts will be remembered for generations to come and his contribution to Indian cricket will remain unparalleled."
He was the main instrument of India successfully organizing 1996 World Cup, which led him to become ICC president in 1997. Dirty internal politics of Indian cricket made him struggle. In 2001 BCCI expelled him on charges of embezzling funds from the 1996 World Cup and he was forced to step down as CAB chief.
After a long legal battle, he was allowed to contest the CAB elections again and he won the presidency in 2008. He served CAB for five years since then. In 2013, however, when N Srinivasan stepped aside temporarily from discharging his duties as BCCI president, the board turned to Dalmiya to run its affairs in the interim.
Srinivasan lost his influence for his alleged involvement in corruption and spot-fixing scandals in the IPL. He had to leave BCCI under court ruling. Consequently, Dalmiya was unanimously elected the BCCI president for a second term in March 2015.
Only yesterday, I and Aminul Islam Bulbul, the cricket icon of Bangladesh, were discussing about him. Bulbul while paying rich tributes to him updated me on his health condition communicating me Ashraful Huq (Dalmiya Admirer) his condition was getting stable.
This morning got the rude shock when after getting up my Facebook updates were highlighted with the news of his sad demise. We are not very sure what went wrong overnight. No one can avoid destiny. Perhaps that is what Dalmiya embraced. His death proved how great he was from instant overwhelming response from cricket fraternity world over.
As an ardent lover of Bangladesh cricket and regular follower of events of world cricket this writer is well aware of Dalmiya caring for Bangladesh Cricket .It was for his unrelenting support Bangladesh qualification to ICC full membership was possible.
Even when Bangladesh President of ICC was controversially embarrassed by ICC during last ICC World Cup final in MCG he stood by the side of AHM Kamal honoring him as especial guest of BCCI and CAB . For his personal intervention, the conspiracy of barring Indian teams scheduled visit to Bangladesh could not be interrupted.
On his sudden demise, Bangladesh Cricket lost a great caring guardian and world cricket lost a great cricket personality.
No one remains indispensable for anything forever. But some loses for some time appears irreversible. Dalmiya is one such cricket personality whose absence will be felt for a long time.
** Dalmiya dies of cardiac arrest
BDST: 1245 HRS, SEP 21, 2015
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