New Delhi: The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Tuesday decided to continue with India’s controversy-ridden tour of Australia “for the present”, but said it would carry on its battle to clear Harbhajan Singh.

After a two-hour working committee meeting here, BCCI treasurer N Srinivasan, accompanied by vice president Rajiv Shukla, issued a five paragraph statement but refused to take any questions.

“It is a legal matter. The statement is self explanatory,” Srinivasan said and then hurriedly read out the statement at a crowded press conference. The whole exercise lasted less than four minutes.

The statement, which was signed by secretary Niranjan Shah, said that the working committee fully endorsed the stand taken by its president Sharad Pawar, “with respect to the quality of umpiring and totally uncalled for, and patently illegal ban imposed on Harbhajan Singh by the Match Referee”.

The strongly worded statement also said: “It further authorises the president to take all possible steps at his command and deploy all human and material resources available to get the player cleared of the obnoxious and baseless accusation.

“The BCCI will review the tour and all other developments continuously... The BCCI is of the categorical view that the matter will have to be finally resolved and the unfair (racist) allegation against an Indian player be set aside/withdrawn...”