Apart from Pawar’s letter, the BCCI has also sent an official appeal to the ICC against the decision of match referee Mike Procter to ban Harbhajan for alleged racial abuse following a complaint from Australian skipper Ricky Ponting.

Later, Pawar told The Sydney Morning Herald: “We are giving serious thought to whether we should continue. We feel that we must take action, enough is enough. We would like to keep an extremely good relationship with the Australian board. Our relationship is extremely cordial and we would like to continue that, but this (ban on Harbhajan) is totally unacceptable.”

Pawar has also reportedly received an SMS from India’s witness during the Harbhajan hearing and star player Sachin Tendulkar, maintaining that the team should play at Perth only after the ban is revoked. According to PTI, Tendulkar wrote: “Harbhajan is innocent and I can assure you on this. In this hour of crisis, the Board should stand by him. I suggest we should play in Perth only if the ban is lifted.”

In fact, prodded by a livid Indian team, which stayed put in Sydney today instead of moving to Canberra as scheduled, the Board has also called for an emergency working committee meeting here tomorrow to discuss the “distressing happenings” in Australia.

At the meeting today, Pawar, BCCI vice-president Rajiv Shukla, former Board chief IS Bindra and Arun Jaitley also referred to a phone call one of them had received from former Pakistan Cricket Board president Shahryar Khan which added to the heat over the Australians’ behaviour.

... contd.