Jagmohan Dalmiya

Jagmohan Dalmiya, born in Calcutta, India on May 30, 1940, is a well-known Indian cricket administrator. He studied at the Scottish Church College, Calcutta.

He started his career as a wicketkeeper, playing for cricket clubs (including his college team) in Calcutta and had once made a double-century. He joined his father's firm ML Dalmiya and Co. and made it into one of India's top construction firms. His firm constructed Calcutta's M.P.Birla Planetarium in 1963. Dalmiya’s wife hails from the distinguished Ghosh family of Pathuriaghata. He has a daughter and a son. He also practices pure vegetarianism.

He joined the BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) in 1979, and became its treasurer in 1983 (the year India won the Cricket World Cup) and later, along with Inderjit Singh Bindra helped to win the right to stage the World Cup in South Asia in 1987 and 1996. He has been elected the President of BCCI on numerous occasions. Though initially rejected by many cricket playing nations, despite his winning the ICC Presidential elections by a 25-13 margin in 1996, he was unanimously elected as the chairman of the ICC International Cricket Council a year later in 1997 for a period of three years, a period in which his work greatly helped to enhance the fortunes of ICC.

However, in the later years, he was often accused by the media of taking the cricket players and spectators for granted, thereby not giving much care to the development of the game's infrastructure in India. In the 2005 BCCI board elections, his candidate Ranbir Singh Mahendra was ousted by Indian government minister Sharad Pawar as the head cricket official of India. Late the following year, he was expelled from the board for alleged misappropriation of funds refusing to provide certain documents. Dalmia challenged the decision and went to the court.