The player of Team India, whom the whole world called a 'flop cricketer', is today the owner of a company worth crores

Cricket News Desk. The Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) formed by the BCCI in December 2022 includes Jatin Paranjape, Ashok Malhotra and Sulakshana Naik. This is no ordinary committee – this committee also works to select selectors and coaches for the BCCI. Recently, this committee had selected Ajit Agarkar as a selector and now this same Agarkar is the head of Team India's selection committee.

BCCI has earlier inducted Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman in the CAC. Comparing him with Jatin Paranjpe? He played only 4 ODIs (in 1998) – yes, 100+ matches in first class and List A cricket for Mumbai. So isn't it surprising that someone who has played so few international matches has been inducted into such a powerful committee? He has also been on the BCCI's senior selection committee. Jatin Paranjpe (the other being Gagan Khoda) was one of the two selectors who were dropped (for not being a Test cricketer) when it became necessary to make changes in the committee while implementing the Lodha Committee recommendations. At the time, there was a lot of talk about BCCI paying him a fee of Rs 43 lakh without doing any work – well, that's a different story. He holds no position in any state cricket association, is not associated with any IPL team and is not even in the coaching staff of any team – so how did he join such a powerful BCCI committee? The answer requires knowing more about Jatin Paranjpe. Before that, two facts:

* Sachin Tendulkar won every award in his career, but he still missed out on one award – the Bombay Cricket Association's Junior Cricketer of the Year award in 1986-87. That year the association gave the award to Jatin and not Sachin – considering him a better talent than him. * Today Virat Kohli has many business contracts and is one of the richest players not only in cricket but in the world. Does anyone remember who gave Virat his first contract and when?

Born in 1972. Jatin showed a talent for cricket from an early age – mainly due to the coaching he received at home. He is the son of Vasu Paranjape, one of the country's most celebrated coaches. A stylish left-handed batsman – his Ranji Trophy career began in the 1991-92 season, he came into Team India in 1998 when the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly were in the batting line-up. His match-winning 23* against Pakistan in the Sahara Cup in Toronto, Canada is widely remembered. Played only 4 ODIs due to an ankle injury – he played Ranji thereafter but no international cricket (First-class career – 62 matches, 3964 runs, 13 centuries and 15 fifties; List A – 44 matches, 1040 runs, 2 centuries and 3 fifties). Newspapers used to describe him as a 'flop cricketer'. Yet he is famous – because of his 'second innings'.

Jatin was associated with an Australian sports management firm called Sporting Frontiers. Learned a lot about the business in two years. Then came Nike. At that time Nike had only S Sreesanth as a cricket athlete. Jatin (Sports Marketing Chief), had been reading about Virat Kohli in junior cricket and was confident that his name would shine – on Jatin's advice, Nike India signed Virat for the IPL, even before he signed a contract with Royal Challengers Bangalore. , Bat was awarded the contract. This was Virat Kohli's first contract.

Tanmay Srivastava was signed the very next day. Thus, began the process of raising Nike's profile. Nike then sent Jatin to Europe – stayed in the Netherlands for 3 years and managed European football for them. Returned to India and launched 'Khelo More' in 2017 – an aggregator for coaches and academies across sports like cricket, basketball, football and badminton. This led to the launch of Sports One India (a sports event and marketing firm).

Investors in his startup include Dream 11 and Eruditus CEO Ashwin Damera. He married Bollywood actress Sonali Bendre's sister Gandhali Bendre. His relationship with the actress' sister grew even more. Gandhali also joined his business and increased the work. Result – luck gave him a second chance and this 'flop cricketer' became a millionaire. Today everyone names Sachin Tendulkar, MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli among the richest and richest cricketers of the country – Jatin Paranjape is no less than anyone. This