By IANS,
Mumbai : Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has paid glowing tributes to its former president Raj Singh Dungarpur, who died here Saturday after a prolonged illness. He was 74.
“It is a great loss to Indian cricket. Rajbhai served Indian cricket diligently and with distinction in several capacities. He was a self-effacing individual who always put the sport, and Indian cricket in particular, above everything else,” BCCI president Shashank Manohar said.
“The BCCI expresses its condolences to his near and dear ones, and the cricketing fraternity.”
Dungarpur served as board president from 1996-97 to 1998-99.
Hailing from the royal family of Dungarpur in Rajasthan, he was the youngest son of Lakshman Singhji, the erstwhile ruler of Dungarpur.
Rajbhai, as he was affectionately addressed by the cricketing community, was a right-arm fast-medium bowler who represented and then led Rajasthan successfully in the
Ranji Trophy in the 1960s. He represented Rajasthan in 86 first-class matches 1955-71, taking 206 wickets.
He dedicated his post-retirement life to cricket administration.
Among the many Indian teams he managed was the side that won a Test series in England in 1986.
Dungarpur served several stints as national selector, and headed the All-India Selection Committee in the late 1980s. As chairman, he was instrumental in defying skeptics and picking a 16 year-old boy for India’s tour of Pakistan in 1989-90. The boy has grown to become a legend – Sachin Tendulkar.
Dungarpur’s capabilities as a visionary were also evident in the form of the critical role that he essayed in the institution of the National Cricket Academy, Indian cricket’s finishing school, at Bangalore in 2000.
A veritable encyclopaedia on cricket, Dungarpur went out of his way to encourage junior cricketers and even cricket writers. It was during his long and eventful stint as president of the Cricket Club of India that the game returned to the club in a big way, in the form of the ICC Champions Trophy in 2006.
Dungarpur also served two terms as the national selector and was also the manager of the team on four overseas tours, including the one to Pakistan in 2005-06.