Indian team laughs off chartered plane reports

MELBOURNE: The Indian cricket team on Wednesday rubbished media reports here that it had chartered a plane to fly back home in case Harbhajan Singh was not cleared of racial abuse charges.

The team which arrived here this afternoon to play a one-off Twenty20 match against Australia on Friday ahead of the ODI tri-series also involving Sri Lanka, rubbished the reports.

The team's media manager MV Sridhar said the visitors had not even thought of such a move.

"I don't know where that came from. There was no thinking like that at all," Sridhar was quoted as saying in 'The Age'.

Sridhar said the Indians were satisfied with the lifting of three-Test ban on Harbhajan and looking forward to get on with the game.

"After what happened yesterday, we're going forward so that the game goes on," he said.

The team is scheduled to train at the Melbourne Cricket Ground this evening.