No, it’s not a joke! Bangladesh cricket fans hacked Indian skipper Virat Kohli’s website to protest against the controversial decision to give Liton Das out in Asia Cup 2018 final. Though the funny thing is that Kohli did not even play in the tournament but the hackers chose to hack his website instead of Rohit Sharma’s, the captain for the tournament.
The nail-biting final saw Liton Das scoring his maiden ODI century. At a time when Bangladesh batsmen were struggling to score, Das took on the Indian bowlers and hammered them around the park. The Bangladesh innings took an interesting turn when Das was given out in the 41th over. As a result they were bundled out for 222 in the first innings. Had Das been there, the score could have been close to 250, a rather challenging total under the circumstances.
Here’s what the hackers had to say to International Cricket Council (ICC),
“Dear ICC, Didn’t Cricket use to be a gentlemen’s game? Shouldn’t every team have fair rights? Please explain how it was out? If you don’t officially apologize to the whole world and take actions against the umpire then get ready to be hacked every single time you recover the site,”
The Bangladeshi fans have said that umpires were biased towards the Indian team. However, the champions were the victim of umpiring blunders against Afghanistan in dead rubber. MS Dhoni and Dinesh Karthik were given out leg before wicket but the replays showed that the ball was not hitting the stumps. The hackers clarified their stand explaining that they meant no disrespect to the Indian fans:
And my fellow Indian brothers and sisters, We mean no disrespect to you guys. Please think about it. How would you feel if injustice was done with your team? Every single national team should be treated equally in the game,”
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The Dhaka Tribune confirmed that Kohli’s website was hacked by a group called CSI (Cyber Security and Intelligence). The third umpire for the match was Australia’s Rod Tucker. Now that the hackers have got the attention they wanted, will it lead to stringent actions on umpiring blunders in future?
