New Delhi: In 2020, when Rohan Jaitley was elected unopposed as the Delhi District Cricket Association (DDCA) president, the association was a pale shadow of itself. The DDCA’s reserves were down to Rs 85 lakh.
In his own words, Rohan understood that “what seems attractive about being a cricket administrator is a crown of thorns” that comes with its own challenges.
By strategically redirecting funds and clearing long-standing financial bottlenecks, he transformed the DDCA from a struggling entity to a thriving cricket ecosystem. The reserves swelled up to reach Rs 100 crore in fixed deposits.
While he went about to tackle 13 years of institutional inertia, a standout feat was the launch of the Delhi Premier League (a Twenty20 franchise cricket tournament) in 2024, a move aimed at making Delhi cricket more financially stable.
Five years on, he has already won a second straight term as the DDCA president. Last year, the practising lawyer in the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court defeated former India cricketer and Lok Sabha MP Kirti Azad to achieve the feat.
“When I joined in December 2020, the association had gone through its fair share of ups and downs. I would say more downs than ups, and there was a lot of turmoil. There were a lot of financial outstanding amounts; there was a lot of financial debt. Multiple factors. There were multiple issues that we were dealing with and, now, we are at a point where we’ve not just made sure that we are financially more sustainable and in a far stronger place,” Rohan told ThePrint in an interview.
Exploring the DDCA’s future trajectory, he outlined plans for technological and infrastructural advancement that include ongoing developments in cricket facilities and operational modernisation.
“We’ve done serious upgrades before the World Cup (2023). We are slowly and steadily now planning towards another cricket stadium in the city. So, there are multiple things that are happening on the infrastructure side. What we’ve also done is that we’ve tried to automate the cricket that happens in the city. We as an association do close to 1,500 games at club level in the city every year,” he said.
Not only the outfield of the stadium was renovated for the World Cup, the restrooms were revamped, turnstiles and facade lights changed, waterproofing work done, and new air conditioning systems installed among others. The stadium, established in 1883, had hosted five World Cup matches.
“We’re trying to integrate a lot of technology. We’re trying to get player passports in place. We’re trying to put all the data out there with the players. We’re trying to use technology to counsel players on how to evolve with time, which is also a big part of it. We’re also planning a stadium which will be more futuristic, more spectator-driven, facility-driven, convenience-driven, top-notch infrastructure-driven. These are still in the plan.”
The DDCA is also planning to launch five-six high-performance centres aimed at identifying and nurturing exceptional cricket talent. The initiative will focus on scouting and consolidating the top 5-10 percent of young players from various academies into a specialised training programme. By creating an elite training environment, the DDCA hopes to develop world-class cricketers and provide targeted coaching to the most promising young athletes in the region.
The BCCI mandated centrally contracted players to participate in domestic cricket during non-international duty periods. This led to Virat Kohli’s return to the Ranji Trophy after a 13-year hiatus, playing for Delhi against Railways at the Arun Jaitley Stadium.
The match drew a massive crowd, highlighting the significant impact seasoned players like Kohli have on fans and their turnout at stadiums. On-ground reports show many fans travelled from outside Delhi to watch Virat don the Delhi whites again.
“It’s exceptionally important when senior players come back and play for their state. That’s home for them,” he said, regarding the impact it creates on other players and the overall morale of the team.
“We have Virat Kohli who’s playing the present Ranji Trophy game. We had Rishabh Pant who played the last game in Saurashtra. It is exceptionally important because it not just puts the team’s morale up there but the squad which has a lot of younger players, players who have not had the opportunity of sharing the dressing room with them in the past. When they play and practice on the sidelines, share a competitive dressing room with senior players who are playing for the national side, there’s a lot that they learn, pick and groom themselves into. So it’s not just a morale booster…. It’s also a lot that they learn by simply sharing the same space.”
Since Kohli’s last outing here 13 years ago, the Arun Jaitley stadium’s pitch has undergone a massive transformation. Once maligned for its low bounce and uneven contest between bat and ball, the cricket pitch has witnessed a significant upgrade in average scores and overall cricket quality.
Statistics show a notable increase in average T20 scores at the ground, from below 150 runs in 2019 to over 220 runs in recent times. The rise in high-scoring matches not only makes for exciting cricket in the shorter format but also underscores the significant upgrade in overall quality, regardless of the format.
Rohan credited the curators for turning around the pitch, saying that they ensured good cricket all the way through.
“We just made sure that we got the best talent in terms of the curator that we have right now, Mr. (Ankit) Dutta on board. And he, over the last few years, has worked quite hard with his team of curators and ground staff to ensure that good-quality cricket happens around the year. Barring that, there are other facilities that we use across the city, but we’ve made certain SOPs to ensure that certain thresholds of quality are maintained across the board,” the DDCA chief said.
The rumour mill was on overdrive that Rohan, given his track record with the DDCA, was being considered as a possible successor to Jay Shah in the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) secretary.
With Jay Shah already serving as ICC Chairman since December 2024, the BCCI secretary position is now held by former Assam wicketkeeper Devajit Saikia after his appointment in January 2025, in contrast to earlier reports.
“I don’t know. That’s a call that the general body of the BCCI is supposed to take and I happen to be the representative of Delhi on the board. The general body will take a decision whether I am competent enough or not,” Rohan said about his potential administrative future with the BCCI.
Rohan’s administrative journey is deeply rooted in family legacy, with his father and former Union minister Arun Jaitley serving as the DDCA president from 1999 to 2013.
He went on to share the advice of his late father, an avid cricket fan, saying, a person’s morals and ethics are the most important, and one should not forget where they come from. “So it’s very important to know what your roots are.”
“We obviously did see a lot of cricket together whether within India or overseas, and from a much younger age. Over the years, it certainly has grown on to me, not because of cricket administration, but more because of the desire to make sure that whatever I have learned over the years goes back into the cricketing ecosystem to make sure that something better can be done than where it was and where it is,” the DDCA chief asserted.
(Edited by Tony Rai)