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| Shami last year, young Arshdeep now — ISI-backed fake narrative targets Indian cricketers again | |||
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Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency has gone into overdrive since Sunday night, feeding misinformation and fuelling hate for Indian cricketer Arshdeep Singh through its bunch of operatives on social media. In the Super 4 match of the 2022 Asia Cup T20 tournament, India was up against Pakistan in Dubai on Sunday (September 4). It was a close contest in which Pakistan prevailed in the end, despite India giving a tough fight till the very end. The result could have been in Men in Blue’s favour as well, had young Indian quick Arshdeep Singh had dropped a sitter. Arshdeep, who was fielding at short third man, dropped a dolly, which turned out to be a crucial miss. Arshdeep put down a sitter while Asif Ali was batting at zero. Ali went on to score a crucial 8-ball 16 and was eventually out LBW to Arshdeep in the final over but by then Pakistan was already on the cusp of a memorable win over the arch-rival. Match over, the 23-year-old left-arm pacer from Punjab, going through a gamut of emotions already, was hugged by his teammates who knew that it was only a game that was lost and Team India still remained a very strong contender for the final.
However, across the border, the win was celebrated as if a war had been won. While the Pakistani fans celebrated on the streets, the ISI saw Arshdeep's drop as a perfect opportunity to activate its Khalistani sympathisers and hate groups across social media platforms.
The notorious spy agency had a blueprint ready – they had run a similar, orchestrated hate campaign against another Indian Muslim quick Mohammad Shami after the 2021 T20 World Cup defeat against the rival nation.
As a result, ‘Arshdeep’ and ‘Khalistan’ became the top trends – even before the Indian players had left the stadium.
Fake Pakistani Twitter handles, putting up doctored tweets, accused an Indian news channel anchor of calling Arshdeep “a Khalistani” after the loss.
As has been witnessed before, it wasn’t too long before some in the media, the usual champions of human rights, and people from the Lutyensesque ecosystem fell for the disinformation being spread by the Pakistani machinery.
Last year, Shami was blamed for India’s loss and asked to prove his loyalty to the country by a similar hate brigade.
While the player himself – and the cricketing community, including the Indian fans to a large extent – knew the reality, many dim-witted and so-called “social media influencers” tried to internationalise the fake narrative.
They did not succeed then and will certainly suffer a crushing defeat this time around, as well.
Ex-India skipper Virat Kohli, who made a solid 60 runs of 42 balls on Sunday, put things in perspective for the haters.
“Anyone can make the mistake, the situation was tight. It was a high-pressure game and mistakes can happen. I still remember I was playing my first Champions Trophy and the match was against Pakistan, I had played a very bad shot against Shahid Afridi. I was watching the ceiling till 5 am, I was not able to sleep and I thought my career is over but these things are natural,” said Kohli after the match.
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