Even the Gods must be crazy to take such sadistic pleasure out of an average Indian cricket fan’s agony. The world cup debacle not withstanding and of course the botched up team selections after that, Indian cricket is in shambles and to prove it, we have Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid falling to bouncers at nets & getting hurt. At this point to make a mockery of things, well god(s) have some mercy.

Of course it was the fault of the selectors too. No vice-captain was named for the two test and three ODI series against Bangladesh. It’s a foreign tour, sort of. You can understand that if it were a home series. That makes it easier to select one if the captain falls sick or gets injured. But for a foreign tour, even though Bangladesh is just a stone’s throw away, defies all cricketing logic. Especially at a time when the team might be in shambles or rather, actually is. After all this is (supposedly) the start of a new era.

It was a master stroke getting Ravi Shastri to manage this team. Albeit for just this tour, but we needed some one like him for a fresh start. And no doubt he has a hand in the non-selection of the vice captain. The reasons were simple enough. They couldn’t make Sehwag the vice-captain because he is not in the test side. You can’t have two vice-captains in the team, one each for tests and ODIs, that would take the already strained relationship among the team members to a breaking point. Again Yuvraj would not have been an option (although he was the most logical and brave choice) because he was just reprimanded by the board for his outburst and handing him the vice captaincy would only further make a mockery of the Board’s actions.

Thus Shastri proved his mettle even before the real battle began. Not announcing a vice-captain and leaving it to the team management of course only means that a vice-captain will be anointed before any match so that if Dravid fails to negotiate another short ball, the team doesn’t fretter away. This way the media also stays away from hounding the selectors, the players et all. Most probably it is going to be Sehwag for the ODIs and Sachin for the tests, once he joins back. Ravi Shastri is a shrewd player at this game, no doubt.

As if the joke wasn’t complete yet, on arrival in Dhaka, Rahul Dravid went on record to say that this wasn’t a revenge series. That they were just there to play good and hard cricket. Come on now. Why can’t an Indian captain ever call it a grudge series? Are they telling us that they don’t hold Bangladesh responsible for their ouster from the world cup? That they don’t want to make them suffer as the Indian team has, these past two months? It could have all been very different, and the mere thought of it should make the teams’ blood boil in their veins.

As Greg Chappell said, we want to be like Australia, but we run the cricket in this country like Zimbabwe.