Harpreet Singh pays the price for mistaken identity

On Monday (February 20), the destiny of two young Indian cricketers, who had little to do with each other until then, crossed paths. One who had already been a part of the glamorous Twenty20 tournament, the Indian Premier League (IPL) and the other who had long treasured a dream to elevate himself onto the bigger cricketing map. By the end of the day, it so happened that the aspirant's dream came crashing down. Harpreet Singh Bhatia, the emerging hard-hitting Madhya Pradesh batsman who had been basking in the glory of being the highest run-getter in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Inter Zonal T20 Tournament, had to pay the price for something he hadn't done.

While the player auction for IPL 2017 was about to get underway around 9.30 on Monday morning, Harpreet had been looking forward to attract bids from the franchises following his success in the domestic T20 tournament. In a parallel world, Harmeet Singh, who had once played for the Rajasthan Royals, drove his car onto the platform at the Andheri railway station accidentally. What followed next was a bizarre chain of events from Harmeet being arrested to the media reporting it with Harpreet as the central character.

All of this fiasco transpired while the auction was panning out. The reports of him being involved in a criminal case reached the auction hall, attracting the attention of the franchises. Asian News International (ANI), on its official handle, tweeted: "Under 19 cricketer Harpreet Singh detained for driving a car straight into Andheri railway station platform last night." Following this, many news organisations carried the wrong information, affecting the youngster's fortunes at the auction. The apology came late on Tuesday but by then the southpaw's chances had been dented.

It is also learnt that a few franchises were looking to pick him for the upcoming season of the IPL but the reports in the media refrained them from doing so.

Obviously disappointed at being left out, the left-hander spoke his heart out in a conversation with Cricbuzz. However, the disappointment had more to do with incorrect reporting than with not finding any buyer. "I am clueless right now, as even I don't know what exactly happened. I did well at the Syed Mushtaq Ali tournament, I wonder if I wasn't picked because of this confusion or did they never want me at the first place," Harpreet said.

The left-hander, who amassed 211 runs in four games with two fifties and a highest score of 92 against South Zone, was gutted with the lack of sensibility and felt hurt for his family too, who had been constantly getting calls and messages regarding the same. "The news spread like wildfire and everyone had been using my picture and name in connection to Harmeet's incident. It was all over the media, and all this happened with the IPL auctions unfolding.

"I was the highest run-getter of the tournament, and now the performances that got me into the players' pool, have been forgotten. I would still be okay with not being picked for the IPL, but the disrepute that the poor reporting has got me, is something beyond repair," he said.

While Harpreet knows that an injury to any of the originally selected players could bring him back into contention, he felt that erasing this disrepute was more dear to him.

The man who was in the thick of action had no lesser reasons to be displeased with the media though. "I have completely lost faith in the media. The kind of things that have been written and said about me in the last couple of days is baffling," Harmeet said. "There's a newly constructed slope at the Andheri railway station for the disabled, which I mistook to be parking but just as my car proceeded, I realised it was a platform.

"I tried to revert but the car was getting stuck at the pavement. On the instruction of a few coolies, I drove ahead to turn the car around towards exit, but hell broke loose by then as the crowd had gathered and there was no way to move the car, pictures were clicked and the cops got me off," he added.

Harmeet, who was totally put off by allegations of drunk driving, hit out at the media and urged them to be more responsible in their reporting. "What irked me more were the pictures that got circulated all over the media and various reports of drunk driving came across as well."

The left-arm spinner, who has moved from Mumbai to Jammu and Kashmir, to play first-class cricket, felt that he was being targetted for the false reporting on Harpreet too. "And now, the IPL thing happened too. Again, not my fault. It was the media who put his [Harpreet] picture and name, I didn't. I am so disappointed that I don't even want to go and clarify this whole episode. It was a matter of paying a fine for the fault that happened. That's it," he concluded.