BCCI president Dalmiya dies in hospital

Jagmohan Dalmiya, the BCCI president, died on Sunday night at the BM Birla hospital in Kolkata, where he 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.

Dalmiya had been admitted to hospital after complaining of chest pain on Thursday and had to have an angiography. He was reported to be stable but remained in critical care for the next two days. The hospital statement said his condition had become unstable on Sunday morning and he died at 8.45 pm. 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.

A long-serving cricket administrator, Dalmiya had since 1979 worked his way from the CAB to president of the ICC and twice headed the BCCI. He is widely credited with being one of two BCCI officials responsible for India's emergence as world cricket's financial powerhouse and the tributes pouring in from across the globe bore witness to the breadth of his relationships.

"As a visionary and a father figure of Indian cricket, Mr. Dalmiya worked towards the development of the game of cricket in India. The cricketing fraternity will miss him dearly," said BCCI secretary Anurag Thakur. "Mr. 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 had initially made a name in the construction business, which he took over from his father at the age of 19, and joined the BCCI in 1979. Along with the then BCCI president NKP Salve and IS Bindra, Dalmiya was the force behind bringing the World Cup to India and Pakistan in 1987, the first time the tournament was staged outside England. It was during Dalmiya and Bindra's tenures in the BCCI that the television rights for matches played in India were first sold to private television channels.

After the successful conduct of the 1996 World Cup, Dalmiya was elected ICC president in 1997 and served in the role until 2000, after which he was elected BCCI president for the first time in 2001. In an acrimonious BCCI election in 2004, Dalmiya's casting vote helped his candidate Ranbir Singh Mahendra get elected as president; but a year later, Dalmiya was beaten in a BCCI election for the first time in over two decades, by Sharad Pawar. His opponents at the time went after him - Dalmiya was banned from BCCI meetings, and an FIR was filed against him - but Dalmiya bounced back to win the CAB presidential elections in July 2006.

Five months later the 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. For the next five years, Dalmiya stayed in charge at the CAB but his influence was diminished at the BCCI level. 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.

With the influence of Srinivasan waning because of the corruption and spot-fixing scandals in the IPL under his watch and the board mired in legal trouble, Dalmiya was unanimously elected the BCCI president for a second term in March 2015. His health was already a concern by that time, though, and he had to be assisted at several board meetings. The last BCCI meeting Dalmiya attended was a working committee meeting in Kolkata on August 28, which he adjourned sine die because of confusion over whether Srinivasan was eligible to attend.