A day after a group of Bangladeshi hackers hacked Congress MP and former minister Shashi Tharoor’s website, ostensibly because he tweeted that Bangladesh would be a lesser challenge to India in the quarter finals of the world cup, Tharoor said he had always wished well for Bangladeshi cricket – and the incident was a ‘small price to pay for supporting Team India’.
The hackers had warned against India underestimating Bangladesh, reminded India to watch its history when it lost to Bangladesh in 2007 World Cup, threatened to manipulate cyber space in India. It was in response to Tharoor’s tweets congratulating Bangladesh for beating England, and ‘giving the boys in blue a better shot at a semi-final slot’. The website is now back to being operational.
?Tharoor told HT it was ironic, ‘because as a cricket fan, I have always supported Bangladesh against everybody else’. He had written to then BCCI president A C Muthiah, twenty years ago, to invite Bangladesh to participate in the Duleep Trophy to enable them to develop their game, Tharoor recalled. He was also ‘genuinely pleased for Bangladesh in their own right’ when they won against England and qualified for the knockouts. “Like most Indians, I like to see sub continental teams do well as long as it isn’t against us!”
Having said that, Tharoor did say he had rooted for them against England on the ‘explicit grounds; that they would be a lesser challenge for India in the quarter finals. “Our vulnerability to English pace trio of Finn, Broad and Anderson was cruelly evident over the Australian summer when we lost repeatedly to England, but it is hard to see this Indian team being quite so vulnerable to Bangladesh’.
{{/usCountry}}Having said that, Tharoor did say he had rooted for them against England on the ‘explicit grounds; that they would be a lesser challenge for India in the quarter finals. “Our vulnerability to English pace trio of Finn, Broad and Anderson was cruelly evident over the Australian summer when we lost repeatedly to England, but it is hard to see this Indian team being quite so vulnerable to Bangladesh’.
{{/usCountry}}