No one can ever forget the contribution of Jagmohan Dalmiya to the Indian cricket as well as to the cricket overall.
He made cricket a more global and entertaining game. His vision to improve the status and standards of the game has always been appreciated by the cricketing fraternity. Dalmiya held the helms of ICC as well as the BCCI at some point of his life.
Dalmiya died in 2015, and the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) have decided to stage a Jagmohan Dalmiya Memorial Lecture before the India vs Sri Lanka Test at the Eden Gardens in November.
Kumar Sangakkara, the former Sri Lanka captain, has been invited to deliver the lecture. On the same, CAB President Sourav Ganguly said,
“We thought it would be befitting to invite Sangakkara since it’s India vs Sri Lanka,”
Dalmiya started his career as a cricket administrator in 1979 and then became a treasurer of the board in 1983, the same year India won its first ever World Cup. It was because of Dalmiya along with Inderjit Singh Bindra who proposed to host the World Cup in the sub-continent in 1987. Before this edition, all the World Cups were hosted by England.
With the support of the associate nations, the 1987 World Cup was hosted in the Sub-Continent. He worked for cricket as a whole; as he proposed the return of South African cricket team to international level ending their sporting boycott. Although it received opposition from the then ICC President Clyde Walcott, Dalmiya ensured South Africa played again. South Africa’s suspension from international cricket in 1970 ended when India hosted South Africa to play an ODI in front of 1,00,000 fans at Kolkata.
He was also unanimously elected as the President of ICC in 1997. He then became the first Asian as well as the first non-cricketer to be appointed the President of ICC. Dalmiya held the post for three years from 1997 till 2000.
He helped Bangladesh attain the Test status in 2000. It was because of his support that Bangladesh hosted India for their first Test in Dhaka.