Asia Cup 2022: India's Arshdeep Singh trolled, Wiki page hacked for dropping a catch against Pakistan

India's Arshdeep Singh became the target of vicious online trolling after he dropped a crucial catch in the death overs resulting in the defeat of his side against Pakistan in the Asia Cup game on Sunday night.

Arshdeep soon began trending on social media. He redeemed himself in the final over and took the wicket of Asif Ali to keep Team India's hopes alive, with two runs needed in two deliveries.

However, he was brutally trolled by angry fans while many blamed him for the loss and even went on to abuse him and his family on various social media platforms.

His Wikipedia page was also vandalised, linking him to the separatist Khalistani movement.

The word India was replaced with Khalistan on Singh's Wikipedia page by an anonymous user even as these changes were shortly undone by another editor.

Pictures were shared on social media, stating that "he was named in Khalistan squad for the 2018 under-19 World Cup."

The edit history of Arshdeep's Wikipedia page revealed that the user who made those changes was unregistered and was using the internet protocol (IP) address 39.41.171.125.

The user also edited his name to "Major Arshdeep Singh Langra" and a minute later, to "Major Arshdeep Singh Bajwa". Many random changes were done to Singh's game statistics.

The Ministry of Electronics and Technology on Monday said that "no intermediary operating in India can permit this type of misinformation."

"No intermediary operating in India can permit this type of misinformation and deliberate efforts to incitement and user harm - violates our govt's expectation of Safe & Trusted Internet," tweeted Rajeev Chandrasekhar, MoS Electronics and Technology.

But the Indian cricket fraternity came in support of the young pacer who had dropped a crucial catch in the 18th over of the match.

Indian batter Virat Kohli had some strong words in his support and said "Even when I played my first game against Pakistan in Champions Trophy, I played a bad shot and got out. Anyone can make mistakes under pressure. It is natural to feel bad. The team environment is great right now, credit for this goes to management and the captain. So one must accept his mistake, address it and look forward to being in that pressure situation once again," said Kohli in a post-match press conference on Sunday.

Mohammad Rizwan and Mohammad Nawaz then stitched a vital partnership, gathering 84 runs for the third wicket. Both Rizwan and Nawaz (41) were dispatched in quick sequence by Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Hardik Pandya, respectively. With Pakistan needing 26 off the last two overs, senior pacer Bhuvneshwar conceded 19 runs in the penultimate over as India lost the match by five wickets.