You don’t tell me what is racism, I know it very well.” The moment South African match referee Mike Procter threw this line at them last night, the Indian team delegation knew which way the hearing against Harbhajan Singh was headed.

And that also explained the grim looks at 1.30 am here on the faces of skipper Anil Kumble, witness Sachin Tendulkar, manager Chetan Chauhan and Harbhajan Singh, the man in the centre of the racism storm that’s put Team India’s tour of Australia on pause.

By morning, the livid Indian team had decided to back Harbhajan to the hilt. Soon, there was an “informal” two-hour team meeting involving just the players. And then, even as some of players entered the team bus to proceed to Canberra as scheduled, it was decided that the team would stay put until the Board had walked the talk and actually filed its appeal against Harbhajan’s ban with the ICC.

In New Delhi, rattled by the strong message from the players, the BCCI rushed into a morning huddle at president Sharad Pawar’s house to firm up two appeals — one seeking to squash the ban on Harbhajan based on a “blatantly false and unfair” charge, and the other seeking to remove Steve Bucknor as umpire from the rest of this series.

Officially, they also put out word that the team would stay on in Sydney to till the paperwork on the appeal against Harbhajan’s ban is complete — it requires the player’s signature and has to be filed within 24 hours of the ban.

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