After being on the denial mode, the BCCI has now asked Secretary Sanjay Jagdale to do a clean-up act. It is understood that the board secretary has spoken to MS Dhoni and Virender Sehwag over the rift and they have been asked to patch up. Dhoni and Sehwag are expected to hold a joint press conference in Sydney on Friday to clarify their statements.

The Board has asked the captain, the vice-captain and the other team members to be on the same page with respect to selection. They have also been asked to focus on cricket because India has two crucial matches coming up which they need to win if they have to make it to the CB Series finals.

On Wednesday, the Indian Cricket Board denied the reports of rift in the team. BCCI President N Srinivasan called media reports "exaggerated". He said that he had checked with the media manager and the Board had nothing to be concerned about. "You have no knowledge of it. I don't think there is any rift in the team. There is nothing to be concerned about," Srinivasan had told the reporters after a meeting of the IPL Governing Council.

"They were responding to such questions in a press conference. It happens after every match. I have spoken to media manager there. I think the reports are exaggerated," he said. BCCI Vice President Rajiv Shukla also refuted reports of a rift in the team. "Sehwag has been misquoted. That's what we came to understand. There is no rift in the team. It is only a speculation by a section of media. I don't think there is any problem. BCCI is in constant touch with the team," Shukla said.

Pressed on the rotation policy, which has generated a heated debate, Shukla said,"Playing XI (is) decided by tour management consisting of manager, captain and coach." The Indian camp has been jostling with speculations of a rift in the team since Dhoni said that top-order batsmen - Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir - were being rotated and not played together in the ongoing series as they were 'slow fielders' who could cost the team 20 runs.

However, Sehwag, who was the stand-in-captain for Tuesday's game against Sri Lanka due to regular skipper MS Dhoni serving a one match ban for slow over-rate, said that neither he nor any of the senior players had been told that their fielding was an issue. "I did not know what he (Dhoni) said and what's going on in media. He told us he wanted to give chance to youngsters who had come here and play the next World Cup. That's what he told us," said Sehwag. The opener, who took a brilliant catch in Tuesday's game against Sri Lanka, also retorted that their fielding had been the same since a decade. "Have you seen my catch?" Sehwag had snapped back, adding "we have been fielding the same way for the last 10 years."