For an Indian cricket fan, the last few months have been quite disheartening. Watching a pathetic performance by their players in the World Cup was just the beginning. After the defeat, the name-calling between the players, coach and ex-players was shocking, and one felt for Rahul Dravid.

Obviously, the early defeat brought out the worst in them, but every big disaster always results in a blame game. What has followed since then has been a farce - and the culprits here are the men who run the BCCI. Think about the following events:

1) A tour to Bangladesh, just a few weeks after the World Cup in May, in conditions which were dangerous for playing. If we'd reached the Super 8s, there would have been even less time to prepare for the players and serious injuries could have occurred.

'Somebody, either the courts or other cricketing bodies, needs to stand up to the BCCI and say: ''Enough. You guys can't get away with what you're doing.'''


2) A complete PR disaster in terms of hiring a coach. Graham Ford and Dav Whatmore seemed like good candidates, but Shri SMG (whose motives are clearly not in the interests of Indian cricket), along with some  frustrated ex-players, insisted on the inclusion of a dummy candidate in John Emburey. Apparently, there were visa problems for the two prospective coaches to visit (due to the BCCI) and when Ford declined the offer, it wasn't just egg on the face of the BCCI - it was the whole meal splattered on their faces.

3) The contracts were delayed, and when they were finally presented, it included Mohammad Kaif and kept a player who's been dropped for a while (Irfan Pathan) above a player who's clearly our best pace bowler (Zaheer Khan).

4) Mahendra Dhoni has been elevated to vice-captaincy in one-dayers, while VVS Laxman has been replaced by Sachin Tendulkar as the Test vice-captain. We must be the only team which has chosen the oldest (in terms of matches) player in the team as a vice-captain. A vice-captain is ideally a player who is considered to be the next captain, and although there are no contenders for Dravid's position yet, Sachin seems an odd choice.

5) When Dravid asked for two extra warm-up matches for the Australian tour (unlike the BCCI, he's looked at the schedule carefully), he was told that professional players shouldn't need warm-up games. Why does the BCCI grant extra warm-up matches to visiting teams for shorter tours?

6) The Indian team is set to play a series of meaningless one-days in Ireland. It's a series nobody (except possibly Ireland) wants to play or watch - much like the Afro-Asia cup conducted recently. When is the ICC or any other organisation going to stand up for the BCCI's shameless money-grabbing posture? Oh wait, all the other organisations now depend on the BCCI for their share of the pie.

When Sharad Pawar took over as President, he promised to hire a CEO, professionalise the board and invest more money into developing cricket in India. There is no CEO, all the members are still elected and honorary and our domestic cricket standards are still sub-standard.

Somebody, either the courts or other cricketing bodies, needs to stand up to the BCCI and say: ''Enough. You guys can't get away with what you're doing.'' They're ruining the game of cricket by overplaying one-day and 20/20 cricket, diluting the quality and driving away a unique fan base (one billion people following 11 players) to other sports. Australia's dominance is making it even harder to follow the game without any cynicism.

If cricket goes the way of hockey in India, and tired and cynical fans turn towards the NBA or European football leagues, BCCI's current officials will have a lot of soul-searching to do.