Ali Bacher, who helmed South African cricket during the days of the apartheid and played a big part in his country’s return to the international fold in 1991, told The Hindu from Johannesburg that it was Jagmohan Dalmiya’s initiatives which had enriched Indian cricket financially.
“There’s no doubt about that. He went in that direction making Indian cricket financially sound,” said Bacher.
Recalling India’s role in South Africa’s return to international cricket after two decades, the 73-year-old said: “I must have spoken to Dalmiya 30 or 40 time overs phone in the early half of 1991, and a few months before the ICC meeting in London. I found him to be a most persistent man.
“The BCCI had taken a decision to propose South Africa’s return to international cricket, and he told me that the Congress Party was not happy with what the BCCI was going to do. So he connected me to (Congress party man) Madhavrao Scindia; I had not met this man. Then Steve Tshwete (of the African National Congress) swayed Scindia in a 15-minute chat, and that’s how the BCCI proposed our return to international cricket.”
Bacher said he had had a fairly cordial relationship with Dalmiya during the first half of the 1990s, but things were not as warm in the second half.
“It was straight. Dalmiya called me to say that he would like to have South Africa with the sub-continent. We did not want to be part of any Afro-Asian block. But we supported [his bid] to become the ICC president in 1997; we abstained from voting. South Africa and Zimbabwe’s vote became crucial,” Bacher said.
“The next year was normal, and at the following ICC meeting it was all sorted out, with Dalmiya remaining ICC president for three years and followed by a three-year term for Australia’s Malcolm Gray.”
