5 most Bizarre cases of mistaken identities in cricket
In the world of cricket, a lot goes in and out where fans find it difficult to even differentiate between players or say, match officials. The game is not only made by all the action that is carried out on the field, but also consists of related things, and talks about anything related to the game. One such aspect is mistaken identity, given the wide range of players who have similar names. There have been cases where officials mistakenly picked a player instead of another person due to some similarities.
Here we have the five most bizarre mistaken identity cases involving team selection, bloopers, sensational news by media outlets, social media outrage, etc.
5. Rishi Dhawan
Rush Kalaria was the talk of the town during the unofficial ODI between India A and Bangladesh A in Bangalore. The BCCI’s scorecard of the match showed that there is an all-rounder from Gujarat who has smashed stunning 56* of 34 to take his home side towards victory. Even Harsha Bhogle got keen to know more about this young talent, Kalaria
Later it was revealed that BCCI’s scoring system mentioned Rush Kalaria instead of Rishi Dhawan, and fans literally banged their heads due to the confusion it created.
4. Rubel Hossain
Rubel Hossain was part of Bangladesh’s tour of South Africa in the latter part of 2017. The unusual thing was that pacer couldn’t travel to South Africa with the team as his immigration was denied owing to some criminal records. This came as a shocker for the entire team. However, later it was revealed that his details were too similar to that of a tainted person.
He received a nod from South African authorities a week later due to which he had to miss the warm-up match in Benoni. This came as a great misinterpretation for people around the world.
3. Harpreet Singh
Harpreet Singh was in roaring form during the 2016-17 domestic season. He scored well across four innings during the Zonal edition of Syed Mushtaq Ali T20, which was a month before the IPL auction. But in a confusing turn of events, the news of Mumbai cricketer Harmeet Singh’s arrest cost Harpreet an IPL contract due to mistaken identity.
Harmeet was Harpreet’s teammate during the 2010 U19 WC, and he drove the car into the platform of Andheri railway station. The franchise went into a state of complete confusion due to similar names, and the in-form batsman remained unsold for that season.
2. Ravindra Jadeja
In 2008, Jadeja had already made his name in the world of cricket as he was part of 2006 and 2008 U19 World Cup. He also played a key role in Rajasthan Royals’ victory in the inaugural season of IPL, but confusion began as his full name read Ravindrasinh Jadeja, similar to that of Punjab Player Ravi Inder Singh.
Jadeja also smashed 155* in a U-25 match before selections but couldn’t make it to the Indian team, whereas Ravi Inder, who made a debut a season ago, got picked by the India Blue team. To everyone’s relief, it was cleared later that it was a blooper from BCCI.
1. Cameron Boyce
During the 2019-20 BBL, a disturbing instance happened with Australian leg spinner Cameron Boyce. He was mistaken as Cameron Mica Boyce, the American actor who passed away in July 2019 due to epilepsy. People around the world started offering condolences to the actor and started tagging the leg-spinner due to absolute similarity in the names.
The confusion was cleared later, and fans were taken aback with the sheer confusion, and the incident gained leg-spinner a big number of followers overnight.
