Niranjan Shah
I have known IS Bindra since the 1990s. He was a passionate bureaucrat, who knew how the government system works and was a straight talker. Those were the days when cricket wasn’t that commercial and India was still finding its feet in the global market. In fact, market kya hota hai (what the market was) many of us didn’t know then. Bindra and the late Jagmohan Dalmiya became the torch bearers and it was under their tenure that the money slowly started to come into the BCCI’s coffers. They played a key role in bringing media rights and that changed the BCCI’s financial situation. We didn’t have enough money to run cricket then but with the help of media rights, the BCCI slowly and steadily became rich. Now we hear about our media rights sold for millions of dollars but then it was a very big thing because we used to pay Doordarshan to telecast the matches.
Though Dalmiya was the face when India hosted the 1996 World Cup (along with Sri Lanka and Pakistan), Bindra was the man working behind the scenes. He also played a role in bringing the 1987 World Cup to India. They ensured India hosted a successful World Cup in 1996 also. They made sure a decent amount of revenue came in, which the Indian board hadn’t seen till then.
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In those days the BCCI didn’t have such a clout globally like it has now but they slowly built it. Dalmiya took Bindra’s help in dealing with Pakistan as being a Punjabi it helped him to speak in the same language as our neighbours. His IAS background helped us to talk to other countries too, especially in planning our future.
Bindra was keen to build a stadium in Punjab and ensured that their domestic side became a decent one in the country. The best part was that he never hesitated to speak the truth and that too cost him a friendship with Mr Dalmiya. He was later appointed as an advisor to the ICC when Sharad Pawar became the ICC chief.
We used to meet at BCCI meetings till 2014. He later stepped away from cricket administrator. BCCI is where it is today because of people like Bindra, Dalmiya and Pawar. They all wanted to take Indian cricket forward.
(Niranjan Shah is a former BCCI secretary and veteran cricket administrator. He spoke to Devendra Pandey)
