Mr.Salve was one of the best cricket administrators the game has ever seen. As president of the BCCI, he played a pivotal role in ensuring that the World Cup became a truly 'international' event, staged all over the world. He was heading the BCCI when India won the World Cup in 1983. The triumph emboldened him to join forces with Air Marshall Noor Khan, the then President of the Board of Control for Cricket in Pakistan, to stake a joint bid to host the 1987 World Cup. The tournament was officially awarded to India and Pakistan in July 1984.
Mr. NKP Salve as a Cricket Administrator earned the respect of his colleagues in BCCI, ACC and ICC as a warm and affectionate person. It was his persuasive skills that convinced the ICC members to agree to take the World Cup outside England and make it a global event that it is today.
Salve was Chairman of the 1987 World Cup Organising Committee. He and his committee members were thus responsible for an outstanding tournament, with 27 matches being played at 21 venues in India and Pakistan. Among the pioneering decisions taken by the Committee were those have a panel of neutral umpires for the tournament-the first time this was done in World Cup history ? and to have fifty-overs-a-side matches.
Considering that World Cup matches have been played thereafter in Australia, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Kenya, the West Indies and Bangladesh, Salve can be truly called a Visionary. Salve represented the BCCI at the ICC, and played a decisive role in instituting the Asian Cricket Council. Mr NKP Salve will always be remembered fondly by us as a very helpful, generous and kind person, who followed and supported the game of cricket till his last days.
