If Jagmohan Dalmiya was a cricket fan, he would be launching foul-tongued tirades and soul-searching witch-hunts into the most baffling injustice in India's turbulent cricketing history. Just how did their diamond-studded 1977-78 side, boasting the brilliance of Gavaskar, Viswanath, Vengsarkar, Bedi, Chandrasekhar, Prasanna and Venkat, lose a five-Test series to an Australian team featuring Sam Gannon, Paul Hibbert, David Ogilvie, Ian Callen, Alan Hurst, Tony Mann and a 41-year-old captain, Bobby Simpson, who had not picked up a bat in a decade? After getting to the bottom of that, Dalmiya might ask how India's equally gifted 1985-86 side, which had won the World Cup two years earlier, could only draw with a team widely regarded as Australia's worst ever. He might question why India have never won a Test series in Australia, why they have won only five series abroad. He might demand to know why they have won only 67 Tests in 69 years - one in every 5.16 matches.

But Dalmiya is not a cricket fan. He is a power-mad leech, sucking the vitality out of a game still rebuilding itself from the shame of match-fixing. He would happily disrupt a three-Test series against South Africa which India had a chance of levelling. He would gladly sacrifice a home series against England. He would rather play three Tests than the scheduled four in England next summer, even though India's history of underachievement is due partly to the fact that they have so rarely tested themselves in extended series against world-class opponents. And all for the sake of a shabby political point or two.

Like most Indian supporters, my initial reaction to the news of Sachin Tendulkar's suspended sentence for ball-tampering was horror. Only a suspended sentence? Aren't suspended sentences yesterday's fashion - like suspender belts, only far less useful? If a bloke is guilty, ban him: wasn't that the plan under the meaner, cleaner new world order?

This issue was buried under the knee-jerk hubris of wounded Indian fans, like the ones who flooded this website with such profound suggestions as the Indian team should "stage a walk-out" or "wear black armbands". Or that Steve Waugh - whose contribution to the debate was simply to state that if Tendulkar was guilty he should be penalised - "is just upset that his team of abusers and cheats couldn't win in India". Worlds away in Hobart, meanwhile, Tony Greig reported that the unanimous view of the Channel 9 commentary team, led by Richie Benaud, was that Tendulkar had been caught indulging in blatant ball-tampering. Pure and simple.

Tendulkar, who is a cricket fan, should have stopped the rot before it started by declaring that he would accept Mike Denness's ruling and imploring everyone else to do likewise. He failed. India's journalists had a professional duty to grill Dalmiya over his motives, rather than cheering him on like drooling, laptop-carrying members of his personal fan club. They failed. And the outraged majority who wrote to this and other websites failed too, you suspect, to be true to themselves. Do they really want to be part of Dalmiya's Asian cocoon in which India play against Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and, once a decade or so, Pakistan? Or do they really want a competitive national team they can be proud of?

When Australia hit rock bottom in the mid-1980s, Bobby Simpson's first move as coach was to work on the team's fitness and fielding. India's cricketers, despite their magnificent performance against Australia this year, are still giving away pounds on the scales and runs in the field. Dennis Lillee has lost a full head of hair trying to find India's next Kapil Dev; he has yet to unearth even the next Karsan Ghavri. India have the population, the riches, the resources. They have all the advantages yet were the conspicuous disappointment of world cricket in the 20th century. West Indies, with all the disadvantages, were the success story.

Things look even bleaker for India in the 21st century. It is a weird time in the game's history, a time when commentary boxes are full of ex-players and administration offices are crying out for them. Wes Hall and New Zealand's Martin Snedden are the only former Test players serving as either president or chief executive of a national board. Yet there is something to be said for putting power in the hands of men who are fuelled not by ambition, but by a desire to put something back into the game they love. India need a president with Dalmiya's energy but without his egomania: a president whose priority is the development of the national game.

A calm, authoritative player from the past would be ideal. A cricket fan would be a start.

Chris Ryan is managing editor of Wisden Cricket Monthly and a former Darwin correspondent of the Melbourne Age.

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