Lata Mangeshkar was a legendary singer and was arguably India’s greatest artist ever, but very few know she also had a great association with cricket as she was very fond of the sport. Lata Didi, as she was called by her fans all around the country, used to attend a lot of India’s matches from the VIP seats of the stadiums which BCCI always had reserved for her.
There is a story about Lata Mangeshkar and BCCI which is very famous in the Indian cricket circles. When India had won the 1983 ODI World Cup in England, BCCI wanted to give cash rewards to the Indian players, but the game’s governing body was not rich enough at that point of time. It was a decade later that BCCI started making a lot of money commercially and today they are at a stage where their next IPL broadcasting deal might be close to 5 billion US Dollars.
So for BCCI to be able to give their World Cup winning players cash rewards back in 1983, they needed a source to first generate that kind of income before handing it out to the players and one of BCCI’s prominent officials at that point of time, Rajsingh Dungarpur, found a unique way to do that.
Rajsingh Dungarpur actually knew Lata Mangeshkar from close quarters and he requested the legendary singer to organise a concert in the National Capital so that BCCI could generate some funds out of it for the cash rewards of the World Cup winning Indian players.
Lata Didi, in a jiffy, agreed for the concert and BCCI, from that concert, generated enough money to hand one lakh INR to each Indian player who was a part of the World Cup winning squad of 1983. It was a decent amount back then and was much more than what the Indian players used to get as match fees and daily allowances.
BCCI showed gratitude towards Lata Mangeshkar for her kind gesture in 1983
As a sign of gratitude, BCCI decided after that concert that they would have two seats always reserved in the VIP box for Lata Mangeshkar whenever a cricket match is played in India in any stadium across the country. Whether Lata Didi came for the match or not, two seats were always reserved for her in all the Indian stadiums during India’s home games.
The Indian players, during their ongoing ODI game against West Indies today, wore a black armband to mourn the death of one of India’s most precious.
