Modi comes from a business background - he is the scion of Modi Enterprises, a $1.5 billion group of companies, and sits on the board of Godfrey Philips, one of India's more successful tobacco companies.

With the help of the Rajasthan chief minister — the equivalent of an Australian state premier — Modi eventually became president of the Rajasthan Cricket Association, a position that gave him a seat on the national board.

In 2005, Modi figured in a power struggle that resulted in Sharad Pawar, an influential politician and national cabinet minister, ousting former Indian cricket supremo and ICC chief Jagmohan Dalmiya in BCCI elections.

But even then, Modi's bid for membership of India's main cricket body hit a snag. The outgoing board appointed a committee to investigate drug charges against Modi when he was a student at a US university in 1985. Modi claims the allegations were dragged up to unfairly discredit him.

"When I was in college I was in a fraternity and the fraternity was charged with a conspiracy to buy drugs — there were no drugs," he said. "What I may have done in my past, when I was in my teens, is not something that I am today. The court system has looked into this and found nothing in it."

Cricket insiders say Modi was viewed as a brash upstart when he became one of the youngest men to be vice-president of the BCCI, but he has been in the forefront of the Indian board's commercial activities since