The Dalmiya files

Live Scorecards
Fixtures - Results

England v Pakistan
Top End Series
Stanford 20/20
Twenty20 Cup
ICC Intercontinental Cup

News Index
Photo Index

Women's Cricket
ICC
Rankings/Ratings

Match/series archive
Statsguru
Players/Officials
Grounds
Records
All Today's Yesterdays

Cricinfo Magazine
The Wisden Cricketer

Wisden Almanack

Reviews
Betting
Travel
Games
Cricket Manager

The Dalmiya files
Wisden CricInfo staff - November 25, 2001

A national hero

Dalmiya denies defiance

"We'll sort it out"

A national hero
Saturday, November 24, 2001

The president of the BCCI, Jagmohan Dalmiya, has emerged as a hero in India after taking a firm stand over the Mike Denness controversy that has threatened to split the Test-playing fraternity.

Dalmiya is no stranger to controversy, but his latest act of brinkmanship has raised his profile among the passionate Indian fans.

Dalmiya, a former International Cricket Council (ICC) president, grabbed the limelight this week when he sprang to the defence of Indian sporting icon Sachin Tendulkar.

As Dalmiya led the Indian board's demand for Denness to be replaced for the third Test or for his decisions to be reviewed by the ICC, he faced rejection from the game's world governing body.

But street protesters and parliamentarians closed ranks as all of India rallied behind Dalmiya, at the same time linking Tendulkar's censure with racism.

The game, still recovering from a devastating match-fixing scandal last year, is now braced for an unprecedented civil war.

Dalmiya, a member of a trading community known for its bargaining skills, played club cricket before turning to administering the game and he has been able to rally the South African authorities behind India in a unique act of rebellion.

The two nations decided to play what would have been the third Test of the series at Centurion Park without Denness as the referee, shrugging aside the absence of ICC recognition for the game.

In doing this, Dalmiya negotiated a tightrope but was careful not to hurt South African feelings by yielding to demands that India call off a tour highlighted by controversial refereeing.

The latest controversy in the game is also seen by many as a battle between the ICC's chief executive Malcolm Speed, who earlier led the Australian board, and the 61-year-old Dalmiya.

Back-room battles are familiar territory for Dalmiya, who was elected as Indian board secretary a decade ago. He later challenged the traditional ICC powers of England and Australia to become the ICC's first Asian president and led the council from 1997 to 2000.

In 1996, he surprised his adversaries by emerging on top of a three-way battle for the post, ahead of current ICC president Malcolm Gray of Australia, but failed to win the two-thirds majority required to be elected.

While thriving on power-politics within the game, Dalmiya has also emerged as a passionate cricketing evangelist, stretching its confines beyond English-speaking Commonwealth nations and arguing that the game's commercial future lies within the subcontinent.

Dalmiya's leadership has raised questions in both England and Australia but his ability to raise vast sponsorship deals, especially in India, has often helped his cause.

His leadership came into question last year, though, when match-fixing investigators turned their focus on the funding of the game but Dalmiya came out unscathed to concentrate on leading his nation's cricket board.

Dalmiya denies defiance
Saturday, November 24, 2001

India's cricket board has not acted in defiance of the International Cricket Council (ICC) over the Mike Denness affair, board president Jagmohan Dalmiya has insisted.

"It is not a defiance," he told BBC World Service radio. "We are respecting, we will respect in future all decisions of the ICC. It is our parent body."

Friday's match at Centurion was stripped of its Test status by the ICC in response to South Africa's decision to replace official referee, Mike Denness.

Dalmiya said the ICC decision breached protocol, arguing that chief executive Malcolm Speed should have consulted the ICC's executive board.

"The chief executive has taken a decision. This decision lies within the jurisdiction of the executive board," he said.

The executive board would address the whole matter when they next met, he added. "If they feel that anything was done wrongly by any of the [India and South Africa] boards then they can take action."

"People have to live with the democratic principles," Dalmiya said. "If any individual does not like the ICC, he may leave."

But he insisted that there would be no such breakaway by the Asian nations. "This is one of the things that amuses me most," he said. "Why should there be a breakaway?"

India protested bitterly when Denness punished five Indian players for excessive appealing and handed Sachin Tendulkar a suspended one-match ban for ball tampering.

Dalmiya said public opinion had been roused by the affair. "It was discussed in parliament," he said. "For three days everything came to a standstill."

He backed the decision to continue with the match being played at Centurion since only the referee had changed. "It is maybe too harsh on the players if their statistics are not allowed to go in the record book," he said.

Dalmiya: We'll sort it out
Saturday, November 24, 2001

India's cricket board will try to sort out its row with the International Cricket Council (ICC) in a "sporting manner", board president Jagmohan Dalmiya has said.

"We have to see how we can get back to the game. Controversies will not help cricket. We will work out the issue with the ICC, we are a family," he told a news conference.

India had asked the ICC to replace Denness for the Centurion match but the sport's governing body turned down the request on Wednesday.

Dalmiya said: "We will discuss the issue with the ICC and find a solution that is acceptable to all parties...let the dust settle."

But Dalmiya said he firmly stood by the Indian and South African board's decision to go ahead with the match in Centurion without Denness.

"I personally feel people all over the world are happy that the cricket is on," he said.

"We have not caused a fight for the sake of causing it. You know what the public opinion was in the country, you know the sentiment."

India was enraged by Denness's disciplinary measures and there have been calls to pull out of the South Africa tour from the media and India's parliament.

Dalmiya said as far as the Indian and South African boards were concerned the current match was official.

"Both the board think this satisfies all the parameters of a Test match. We feel it has got the official status.

"As a member of the ICC, if we thought some corrective measures were needed that the top officials of ICC were not providing, we supplemented and complemented certain requirements through our action," he said.

The BCCI is expected to discuss the issue further in a working committee meeting in New Delhi on Monday.

Site Map | RSS feeds

Cricinfo is part of ESPN

ESPN - Soccernet - Scrum - F1-live - Scorecenter