The visiting Indian cricket team, doing a sit-in in Sydney since the second Test, finally arrived in Canberra on Wednesday afternoon for their practice match starting on Thursday.
A posse of media personnels were waiting outside the team hotel since morning before Anil Kumble and his men arrived at 2.30 p.m local time.
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India are due to play a three-day match against an Australian Capital XI side, starting on Thursday, before heading to Perth on Sunday to prepare for the third test. The team, by the looks of it, appeared tired though Harbhajan Singh looked in high spirits.
The team arrived by bus amid a tremendous heatwave yet the Indian cricketers were keen to attend the practice session at the Manuka Oval, scheduled at 4 p.m., in full force.
Team manager Chetan Chauhan was crowded from all corners soon after he had disembarked from the bus. He was polite and met all questions with a straight bat, stating that they were doing everything which the Indian board was asking to do.
"We are doing whatever the board is asking us to do. We are just following their directives," said Chauhan.
Harbhajan, the chief protagonist in the racism row, was the man in the centre of storm as everyone wanted him to say or word or two on the matter.
"Bhajji" on his part, kept his counsel, and didn't fall for media's bait.
They spent Tuesday playing volleyball at Bondi Beach instead of training.
The International Cricket Council (ICC) had found Harbhajan guilty of racially abusing Australian all-rounder Andrew Symonds during last week's second test but maintains his innocence.
The BCCI lodged an appeal on his behalf and threatened to abort the tour unless the ICC dropped the charges but the sport's governing body said normal appeal processes had to be followed, although Harbhajan would be allowed to play until the case was finished.
'BANGING THE TABLE'
The BCCI agreed to continue the tour when the ICC caved in to their demands to sack West Indian umpire Steve Bucknor and charge Australian all-rounder Brad Hogg with abusing an Indian player. His case will be heard on Jan. 14.
ICC Chief Executive Malcolm Speed said competing countries were not normally allowed to interfere with the appointment of umpires but the ICC had agreed to dump Bucknor to save the tour and stop the crisis from escalating.
"We could have gone in banging the table and playing 'who blinks first', we could have turned what is already an international incident into an international crisis," Speed told the Nine Network on Wednesday.
"What we have elected to do, and we've given some serious thought about this, is to take one of the issues out of play.
"There was unhappiness about the umpiring, we put a new umpiring team in place, and we start again from the umpiring perspective in Perth and hopefully focus on the matters on the pitch rather than exacerbating the crisis."
Photograph: India's Harbhajan Singh waits in a coach to Canberra outside the team's hotel in Sydney/Getty Images
