Madhya Pradesh batsman Harpreet Singh Bhatia was quite hopeful of being picked in Indian Premier League auction as he was in best of the form during the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy 2016/17, including in the interzonal league of the tournament but a news broke out on the morning of the auction day, which he thinks that was the reason why no franchise showed interest in him.
On the morning of February 20, a news came out that a former Under 19 cricketer has been arrested for driving his car on Andheri railway station.
Many news agencies covered the news but wrongly mentioned Harmeet Singh as Harpreet Singh. Harmeet was taken into police custody for further interrogation.
The gaffe was later corrected by the news agencies but Harpreet was not amused by all this as according to him, the case of mistaken identity was the reason why he did not find any buyer in the auction,
“I’m mentally disturbed… Mera Naam to Kharab ho Gaya Na (I have got a bad name). How can one clear that? I am getting calls from everyone asking what have you done. I was hoping to be picked up at the IPL auction… When my name came, the franchises must have felt why to take a player who is in police custody. I am not bothered about IPL now, it’s gone. But even if you run a search on my name on Google, the first thing that comes up is that I was arrested,” Harpreet told The Indian Express.
This is not the first time we such a case has happened as a few years back as well when Harmeet Singh was questioned for IPL spot fixing, a news agency mistakenly used Harpreet’s photo but later corrected it after realising their mistake.