Drama is the spice of the day always in the life of an Indian cricket captain. Little wonder then that the demands of holding on to the captaincy have now caught up with Virat Kohli. But in all the suspense and drama over Kohli’s white-ball captaincy it is easy to lose sight of the fact that no captain since 2005 has been stripped of his role in all formats at once.

Saurav Ganguly, who heralded an attitude shift in Indian cricket starting in 2000, is now at the helm of affairs at the BCCI. The end to his transformative captaincy was dramatic, to say the least, coming at least partially as a result of frictions with coach Greg Chappell. Now, he presides over what has turned into a rather loud transition from the Kohli era.

But in all the din of the past few days what seems to have been forgotten is the memory of how our recent captains did not ascend to full responsibility all in one go, the way Mohammad Azharuddin, Sachin Tendulkar or Saurav Ganguly did. Both Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Virat Kohli first became full-time captains of India in one format before receiving complete charge.

In Dhoni’s case, he was named captain of the team for the inaugural ICC World Twenty20 in 2007, which he won. It was only in 2008 that he took over the Test captaincy from Anil Kumble. Similarly, Dhoni stepped down from Test cricket and Test captaincy in 2014. He remained white-ball captain till 2017.

So too is the way the story of Kohli’s captaincy played out. After taking over from Dhoni in 2014 in Australia, there was little doubt expressed when he was given full charge of Indian cricket ahead of the 2017 ICC Champions Trophy.

Now, amid the hullabaloo over his position, Kohli has chosen to step down on his terms and not the BCCI’s. He has announced that he would stand down from the T20I captaincy, but only after the 2021 T20I World Cup, which will end in November. The move has presumably put a pin in speculation over him continuing as captain of the ODI and Test teams.

In any case, it is now up to the BCCI and the rest of the team management to ensure that Kohli’s full handover of the captaincy does not become acrimonious. The team benefitted in a lot of ways, as did Kohli, from the bonhomie between Kohli and Dhoni during their transition.

The crux of the matter now lies with the BCCI, in who it sees as the next captain. Will it go for current vice-captain Rohit Sharma, who is two years older than Kohli, or with someone younger. That decision could turn out to be the key to how seamless the transition is going to be for Indian cricket.