Bangalore: The acrimony that marred December-January’s tour Down Under seemed to boil over again with a face-to-face confrontation between Zaheer Khan and Brad Haddin at the Chinnaswamy on Saturday.

Just three days into the opening Test of the current series, Zaheer took strong exception to what wicketkeeper Haddin said in the last over before a 28-minute rain break in the final session.

Zaheer turned towards Haddin voicing his unhappiness following a short ball from Mitchell Johnson.

The eighth wicket pair of Harbhajan Singh and Zaheer were then going great guns forcing the Aussie attack into submission. Haddin began walking at the end of the over, but Zaheer was not to be left behind. What followed was an animated conversation.

Teammates intervened as the covers came on. Zaheer, however, continued his protest and even spoke to captain Ricky Ponting on the way back to the dressing room.

It was later learnt that Match Referee Chris Broad had spoken to the concerned players. For the record, the Australian wicketkeeper had a bad day in office, giving away 24 byes.

Towards the closing stages, a frustrated Watson also directed a verbal volley at Zaheer forcing umpire Asad Rauf to intervene. The allrounder, however, had the last laugh a little later when he induced an edge from Harbhajan to break the 80-run stand.

Both sides, however, downplayed the Zaheer-Haddin incident. “It’s a part and parcel of the game…I don’t think there was anything serious. If there was anything to it, Zaheer would have talked about it in the dressing room,” said Rahul Dravid.

“I think the game has been played in a good atmosphere so far… We are going to go out there in the next couple of days and do our job and think about what we are doing,” said Mitchell Johnson.