India are now without a Captain, and a Coach. And they are about to embark on what promises to be the toughest of seasons with Tests and ODIs against Australia, Pakistan and South Africa in the near future, not to mention the Asia Cup and the challenge of the ICL and the burden of the IPL looming.

Dravid has always been a team man, and it would be uncharitable to suggest that he abdicated his responsibilities as Captain at this juncture, because he did not have the stomach for the fight. Most would give him the benefit of the doubt, and say that he realized that Indian cricket needed to move forward from its obsession with the so called Big Three and start seriously planning for the future without them.

However, the timing and especially the fact that he did not forewarn of his action, does beg the question why did he not at least wait until the end of this season to hang up his captaincy boots? He may have reasoned that announcing before the season that he would be giving up Captaincy after the season would make him a lame duck leader, with even lesser ability to motivate his team than he already had. But by announcing his withdrawal from the hot seat so suddenly he has ensured that the transition to the next generation will be far from smooth.

Already noises are coming out from the BCCI and particularly its Maharashtrian strong-man politician turned president that the job will now be offered to the aging veteran Sachin Tendulkar for both Tests and ODIs. If Sachin in a moment of either wishful thinking or noble considerations for the good of team accepts this offer, Indian cricket will be set back a decade or more and Dravid’s aim of resigning to force BCCI to build for the future will be moot.

Meanwhile the BCCI itself -- after its initial shock that anyone would voluntarily give up a position of power, a concept so alien to most of the power hungry politicians who serve as its functionaries that they genuinely cannot comprehend the concept -- is taking this in stride and focusing all its energy on trying to start the Indian Professional League (IPL) so as to ward of the challenge of the ICL, while paying scant attention to actually trying to run the game.

No plans have been made as to hiring a coach, or a permanent manager and media liaison. Clearly the actual running of cricket and looking after the needs of the Team are not very high priority for the BCCI whose highest and some would say only priority is raking in the moolah.

No wonder Dravid has had enough. The BCCI drove off the one serious candidate for coach it had after the Chappell fiasco, Graham Ford, then alienated arguably India’s greatest living cricketer, Kapil Dev, basically pushing him away and almost forcing him to join the ICL if he wanted to give back to cricket, and now has forced the Indian captain into giving up his job. Truly the old Hindi saying, bandar ke gale heeron ka haar (A diamond necklace on a monkey’s neck) applies to the current baboons running Indian cricket.

Unfortunately in all this tamasha the victim as always is the long suffering Indian cricket fan. It is quite astonishing that any of them even show up at any of the grounds to watch India play. The infrastructure at most grounds is so abysmal that they make railway station waiting rooms look like five star hotels. And yet the BCCI spends nary a paisa on improving infrastructure but is willing to pony up millions to start a pie in the sky IPL.

But maybe even the fans are to blame at least partially. They have continued to support the BCCI’s product, even though it is shoddy, and delivered with all the warmth and customer care of a government ration shop. But now with the ICL they may actually have a choice and like Dravid, they should vote with their feet and abandon ship.

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