IPL auction 2017: How Harpreet Singh lost out on lucrative contract due to erroneous tweet

What’s the cost of mistaken identity? In Madhya Pradesh cricketer Harpreet Singh’s case, it led to him losing out on a lucrative contract with an Indian Premier League (IPL) team.

On Monday, the day of the IPL auctions, former Mumbai cricketer  Harmeet Singh was arrested for driving his car straight onto the platform of Andheri Railway Station in Mumbai. However, a few news agencies tweeted that it was Harpreet who had been arrested.

By the time the agencies corrected their mistake, the damage had been done and Harpreet went unsold in the auction.

“We wanted to buy him, but as news came of Harpreet’s arrest, we decided not to do so since it would give the franchise a bad image. But later, when the auction got over, we came to know it was Harmeet and not Harpreet,” a franchise official told The Indian Express .

Reputed news agency, ANI, was one of the first agencies to make the mistake, tweeting: “Under-19 cricketer Harpreet Singh detained for driving a car straight into Andheri railway station platform last night.”

The report also pointed out that the tweet was on ANI’s Twitter timeline till Wednesday. The agency later tweeted a correction stating: “Incident of driving car into Andheri Railway Stn platform involved U-19 cricketer Harmeet Singh, not Harpreet Singh as reported earlier… Mumbai U-19 cricketer Harmeet Singh who was then arrested for the offence, was granted bail by Andheri court thereafter.”

Incident of driving car into Andheri Railwy Stn platform involved U19 cricketer Harmeet Singh,not Harpreet Singh as reported earlier #Mumbai pic.twitter.com/CjeI1rxubT

— ANI (@ANI) February 22, 2017

“I’m mentally disturbed… Mera naam toh 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 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 Express.