Melbourne, Mar 16: Australian batsman Matthew Hayden says he would like to ''patch up'' with off-spinner Harbhajan Singh.

In the third Test between Australia and India in December, Hayden and Harbhajan have been involved in a war of words.
The off-spinner was involved in a race row with Andrew Symonds and was labelled ''an obnoxious little weed'' by Hayden. Harbhajan in turn called the Australian opener a ''big liar''. ''I'd like to have a chat with Harbhajan when we get to India. I want to sit down with him and see if there is any way we can move forward with our relationship because it hasn't been great. I'd like to see where he's and see if we can patch up our differences.

Frankly, everyone is sick of it,'' Hayden told the Courier Mail.

''I don't know how Harbhajan is feeling but he made it clear how he feels about our team. To put closure on my indiscretion (calling Harbhajan an 'obnoxious little weed'), I could have used a different choice of words. In 15 years of cricket, I had a slip. It wasn't to disgrace or denigrate Harbhajan. I could have gone for a different turn of phrase. In the end, all I did was put fuel on a fire that already existed. It wasn't necessary. It was a mistake,'' he said.

Hayden insists India is not a bad bunch.

''They were reasonably pleasant. At the end of the day, two alpha dogs are never going to sit in a cage and not look at each other.

It is what it is. The way I see my cricket, if you're the other alpha dog, you better not blink. I feel I'd be letting down my country if I was to blink. In terms of general human relations, I wouldn't say there was ill-feeling. India had four months out here. We rarely saw them other than at the ground. It's play and get back into the cage,'' Hayden added.

UNI