Cricket

Mumbai: Indian off-spinner Harbhajan Singh, who had a major tiff with controversial Andrew Symonds during India's tour Down Under in January, is unconcerned whether the Aussie all-rounder will come to India with the Australian national team or not.


"It doesn't bother me whether he is coming or not. We are playing against a team. If he features in it, fine, if he doesn't, things don't change much for me. We may have had our squabbles, but that's all part of the game," Harbhajan has been quoted as saying in the Courier-Mail.


Symonds and Harbhajan were at the centre of the SCG row in January, but a repeat of the match-up is unlikely as Cricket Australia are not too keen to include Symonds in the team for India if he does not mend his ways and shows more involvement with his teammates.


The all-rounder was sent home from the One-Day series against Bangladesh after he preferred to go fishing and skipped a team meeting.


However, Symonds found support from two other former Aussie stars Dean Jones and Greg Chappell.


Jones wanted to know what the big deal was about Symonds' behaviour.


"Jeff Thomson and Dennis Lillee did some awful things in their time. And it's not as if he's hit anyone or racially abused anyone. All he has done is miss a team meeting. For God's sake. We send him home and then throw him to the dogs. I think it's disgraceful," he said while speaking on Radio 2GB.


Greg Chappell, the former Australia captain and now Centre of Excellence coach, said Symonds needed a break from the game to work out what was important.


"There are a lot of stresses away from the field. The constant focus of attention on everything that you do, anything that goes wrong will be highlighted," he told AAP.


"Learning to deal with all of that and understanding how it fits into a successful career and a successful team is a very important part of the mentoring role. Hopefully he decides playing for Australia is very important because he is a terrific cricketer and we all want to see him playing for Australia as long as possible," he added.


Meanwhile, Cricket Australia offcials have said Symonds will be given all the time he needs by Cricket Australia to make a decision on his future.


"He has our absolute support and we've already gone to great lengths to ensure appropriate processes are in place for him," James Sutherland, the Cricket Australia chief executive, said. "The feedback I have got from inside the team is that they have dealt with it as a welfare issue. There's some discipline issues related to it, but ultimately it's a welfare issue. We all want Andrew Symonds up and going, playing cricket for Australia."