During the 18th over of Pakistan’s run chase, Ravi Bishnoi, playing his first match of the tournament, created an opportunity as he induced a top edge from Asif Ali but Arshdeep Singh failed to hold onto a simple catch.
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The drop during the nail-biting match between the two archrivals caught the attention of Pakistanis who have reportedly started propaganda against the bowler on Twitter, calling him “Khalistani”.
India lost the match on the penultimate delivery and angry fans unleashed their wrath on the 23-year-old pacer from Punjab.
While some of the criticism was justified, a few sulky Twitter users, the majority of these social media accounts from outside of India, stooped low and targeted Arshdeep’s religion and called him names after another nail-biting finish.
Certain sections of fans went to the extent of tarnishing the Indian cricketer's image by labeling him as a 'khalistani', following which, the IT ministry summoned Wikipedia executives for a meeting to seek an explanation on how Arshdeep's Wikipedia page entry was changed to reflect his 'Khalistan' association.
Earlier in the day, BJP leader Manjinder Singh Sirsa, in a key development, highlighted that several Pakistan-based accounts were responsible for targetting Arshdeep and Sikhs in genera
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Meanwhile, many from India supported Arshdeep and called out those who were criticising him for deliberately dropping the catch. Former India off-spinner Harbhajan Singh took to Twitter and extended his support to the youngster who seemed to have succumbed under pressure.
“Stop criticising young @arshdeepsinghh. No one drop the catch purposely.. we are proud of our boys .. Pakistan played better.. shame on such people who r putting our own guys down by saying cheap things on this platform bout arsh and team.. Arsh is GOLD,” Harbhajan tweeted.
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