There is the impression as well that some who have applied for the vacancy are wondering why the long delay and are even losing interest. And that's not at all the way it should be. Not when you consider, the man in charge, Sharad Pawar is to one day run the International Cricket Council.

When India's bubble burst during the World Cup in the Caribbean, there was this impression ‘Team India’s’ strategy was based on sandcastles and not bricks. What is worrying is that despite this reputation of a formidable batting squad, India appear vulnerable, even against a bowling attack shorn of three of the four bowlers who two years ago wrested The Ashes from Australia. What this explains is that England, despite limping along, are a better side than ‘Team India.’

Why is it that Sri Lanka have gone ahead in the Test rankings and have become highly competitive? They have been far more consistent and this under a system that was initially put in place by their former star batsman Aravinda de Silva. This was at a time he was vice-president of the board and having a look at the Australian system knew the one way forward.

Back in 2003, when Sri Lanka were seventh in the rankings, this former mercurial batting artist put together a plan that four years later sees them the top ranked Asian side. It was his desire to build a system that emulates Australia and to do this he made a study of the opposition Down Under and how it works: build success on success and make it work.

This mind you, is Aravinda, not Arjuna Ranatunga who bad-mouthed Dav Whatmore out of the possible job and will no doubt try a similar tactic on John Dyson. It is not the image India need as they go about rebuilding.

Ranatunga, with no coaching experience, now wants India job so badly is prepared to pull a variety of verbal fisticuffs to get his way. Dyson is levelheaded and his back up was another Australian, coached and trained, Stan Nell, who was running the Monash University high performance centre in Melbourne.

Nell may not be a big name, but was raw-boned Ian Buchanan when taking over Australia in 2000? Nell had been doing some coaching in Sri Lanka in the first couple of years of the new century and knew the drill as well as the new emerging generation of players: Lasith Malinga, Malinga Bandara, Upul Chandra and others coming to through the ranks. He also took a highly successful A team on a tour of England with just himself, a physio and a manager as the team management. There was no bowling coach (or assistant), no computer analyst, no trainer.

As with Australia, Aravinda's plan was to have Dyson and Nell put working structures in place; it was a back up system that worked well and with committed players. Forgotten all too soon has been Aravinda's smart-thinking role in setting up organisation that had so impressed Bangladesh and now has Sri Lanka three in the Test ranking and the leading South Asian side.

What this tells you is how you need in-depth planning and a man who has played at Test and international limited overs level, to know what he wants to have a nation of barely 20 million placed well ahead of one with a big reputation and a billion to draw from.

After all, Sri Lanka have their next coach in Trevor Byliss and it's a bit silly to go outside the system to pull in a deputy whose knowledge of the island is that of tsunami disasters and Tamil women picking tea.

But reading the fatuous and pretentious headlines that accompanied Pakistan's appointing Geoff Lawson and coaches, Shoaib Akthar' s reaction ('I love the Australian way of thinking, it is far ahead of that of the sub-continent.') suggests India are still lurching from one disaster to the next.

Both are well behind Sri Lanka and will remain so until the board stops playing politics and put their act together.