By IANS
New Delhi : The Indian team’s Australia tour will continue “for the present”, the Indian cricket board’s Working Committee decided Tuesday even as it authorised its president Sharad Pawar to take steps to get spinner Harbhajan Singh cleared of the charge of racial abuse.
The Working Committee at its emergency meeting here in the evening decided “the tour will continue for the present”, though a resolution also added: “The BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket India) will review the tour and all other developments continuously.”
There were question marks on the tour following charges of poor umpiring by Steve Bucknor of the West Indies and Mark Benson of England going against India in the second Test at Sydney, which the visitors lost last week, as well as the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) decision Sunday to ban Harbhajan for three Tests on the charge of racially abusing Australian all-rounder Andrew Symonds.
“We fully and unequivocally endorsed the stand taken by the president (Sharad Pawar) and concerned officials with respect to the quality of umpiring and totally uncalled for, unjustifiable and patently illegal ban imposed on Harbhajan Singh by the match referee (Mike Procter),” the Working Committee said.
“The Working Committee also reiterated the ban is totally unacceptable. It authorised the president to take all possible steps at his command and deploy all human and material resources available to get the player cleared of the obnoxious charge and baseless accusation,” it said.
The meeting was held to thrash out the one-point agenda of “discussing the Australia tour”.
The two issues, punishing Harbhajan and poor umpiring, snowballed into a major controversy Monday with the BCCI formally asking the ICC to rescind Harbhajan’s ban and remove the two umpires from the last two Tests.
The BCCI made it clear to the ICC that the Indian team would not play any future matches until its two conditions were met.
The punishment for Harbhajan was rescinded Tuesday after the BCCI had strongly protested on behalf of the off-spinner.
The ICC also removed Bucknor from the last two Tests of the series that India trail 0-2. New Zealand’s Billy Bowden will replace Bucknor in the third Test in Perth starting Jan 16.