New Delhi: After day-long drama at the Indira Gandhi International airport in the capital on Sunday, the 17-member Indian table tennis squad left for Melbourne in two batches to participate in the Australian Open.

Though booked in an Air India flight with confirmed tickets, only 10 of them were given boarding passes saying the flight was overbooked. Among those who were stranded were Commonwealth Games gold medallist Manika Batra, Bengal girl Mouma Das, Madhurika Patkar, Harmeet Desai, head coach Massimo Constantini and two other support staff.

The tickets were issued by the official travel agency of the government of India.

A highly upset Manika put out a message on a social media platform asking whether those who brought laurels for the country should be treated in this manner. The authorities then swung into action and managed to put the rest of the players in a late night flight run by a different airlines.

Table Tennis Federation of India secretary MP Singh said the flight problems could hamper the performance of the team. “With the late night flight, the players would reach the venue barely 12 hours before the start of the tournament. They would have little chance to prepare,” he said.