AAKASH Chopra and Mithun Manhas were once travelling by train from Delhi to Mumbai for a domestic match. Chopra, having just bought a new pair of sneakers, feared they might get filched.
Before going to sleep, he requested Manhas to keep an eye on them. Manhas reassured his friend and, true to his word, rested his foot on Chopra’s pairs.
By the time they reached Mumbai, though, it was Manhas’ own pairs that had been stolen. “Poor thing,” Chopra, a former India opener, ruefully recalls. “That shows his character.” He won’t admit it himself, but it looks like the famous movie line sits with him perfectly – once he gives a commitment, he doesn’t shy away.
As Manhas (45) prepares to take charge as president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), Chopra couldn’t be happier. “I always thought he would play for India; never imagined he would become the president of the BCCI.” In Delhi’s power circles, such a dramatic climb – coming out of nowhere and sending ripples through the ecosystem – would be described as an accidental presidency.
Chopra, however, is delighted for his friend – the two played together for Delhi in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Before that, they were teammates at the Sonnet Cricket Club, Delhi’s watering hole for aspiring cricketers that produced scores of internationals. While many from Sonnet carried a sense of inherent cockiness, arrogance and swagger, Manhas stood apart. “He was always calm and balanced,” Chopra recalls. “He could extract the best out of everyone and get the work done.”
That same attitude defined his stint as captain of the Delhi side, which boasted internationals like Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Ashish Nehra, and Chopra himself. Over the years, Manhas also led a host of other internationals – whether for Delhi or North Zone – including Vikram Rathour, Yuvraj Singh, Vijay Dahiya, Ajay Jadeja, Shikhar Dhawan, Ishant Sharma, Virat Kohli, Amit Mishra, VRV Singh, Joginder Sharma, Parvez Rasool, and Rahul Sanghvi, among others. He managed them all with remarkable ease, poise and grace.
Not just as a captain, Manhas also built a reputation as a gritty, fighting cricketer. In one memorable match between Andhra and Delhi in Vijayawada, he even switched to left-hand batting in an attempt to accelerate. “We were bowling a negative line and then he decided to bat left-handed to score quick runs. He continued like that for about 10 overs,” recalls an Andhra player who was part of the game, highlighting Manhas’ proclivity to make things happen.
“He has a mature head, knows what to do, how to do it, and when to do it,” says Amit Bhandari, a former teammate. “He takes his time, but he always does what is needed.”
Manhas is also credited with reshaping Jammu & Kashmir cricket. For long the backwaters of Indian cricket, the J&K team has made steady progress in recent years. Just last season, a band of largely unknown cricketers stunned Mumbai – the 43-time Ranji champions – with an outright win that left Indian cricket watchers shell-shocked.
In the recent Duleep Trophy, as many as five J&K players found a place in the North Zone playing XI – an unprecedented milestone. This stands in sharp contrast to the old days, when a J&K cricketer would struggle to even make the squad. As an administrator of the Jammu & Kashmir Cricket Association (JKCA), Manhas has been instrumental in transforming the face of cricket in the northern state. In his own words, in four years as the head of JKCA, the J&K side did very well in the national circuit.
After forging a cricketing career, he went on to become a Delhi great, representing the state in over 250 games and captaining it in over 60 matches across formats. The journey was far from easy, and he sure knew it would not be.

Manhas’s story is one of a domestic legend who truly deserved a national cap but never got there. “It’s a selection process and he was somebody who didn’t play international cricket but was always a Test player for us in the North,” says Ajay Jadeja, a former India captain and a friend of Manhas’. A lot of players would tell him jokingly that he is a Test player without the Test cap.
Jadeja first encountered Manhas in his debut game – Delhi versus Haryana. “I’ve known Mithun from his very first match. I was playing for Haryana, and that was when I first interacted with him. Delhi, in those days, was a very strong team with a lot of seniors.” Over the years, Manhas became a mainstay for Delhi, and comparisons were drawn between him and Amol Muzumdar of Mumbai – a prolific run-getter who, despite his domestic heroics, never got to play for India.
“Mithun was considered to be a smarter cricketing brain. Everybody knows his talent and the number of runs he scored over the years. I think the way people look at Amol in Mumbai – someone who played around that period and did so well – is similar. I am not saying they were similar players, but they had a comparable journey. Amol also felt he was better than many who went on to play for the country.”
Manhas enjoyed a 19-year domestic career, playing 157 first-class matches (9,714 runs), 130 List A games (4,126 runs), and 91 T20 matches (1,170 runs). Representing Delhi, he featured in 127 first-class games, 90 List A matches, and 23 T20s, captaining the team in 31 first-class matches, 20 List A games, and 10 T20 fixtures.
Manhas’s elevation to the BCCI presidency is closely tied to his Jammu & Kashmir roots. The powers-that-be sought to give representation to one of Indian cricket’s under-represented states, and no one was better suited for the role than the JKCA administrator. “I remember him talking about Jammu & Kashmir very passionately because he grew up there,” Jadeja recalls. “He has always been a leader, if you think of it. So, he has leadership qualities, there is no doubt.” Indian cricket will now be looking to those very leadership qualities.
Manhas himself thinks his credentials on and off the field earned him the top post. “Maybe my work, my credentials,” he said after being formally elected as BCCI president.
Credentials as a domestic cricketer or as an administrator?

“Of course, as an administrator, as a cricketer as well.
For the past four years, I’ve been working with J&K cricket associations. And we have qualified seven times in the knockout stage,” he remarks. His agenda is now to ensure development of Indian cricket and take it forward.
Having been a surprise candidate of the powers that be in the country, questions remain about how he was chosen, why he was chosen and whether he will have the freedom to function independently. In fact, the choice of Manhas has sent shockwaves in the Capital’s cricket circles, if not in the political landscape, and his rise is not exactly welcomed there. But that is a different issue.
Over to the accidental president of Indian cricket. (Cricbuzz)