New Delhi: In the Commonwealth Games being held in Birmingham, the 2022 Indian women’s hockey team had to face defeat in the semi-finals. Since then, cheating is trending on social media. Australia beat India 3-0 in the penalty shootout. With this the dream of India was shattered. Actually, Australia’s team had missed on the first penalty stroke.
timer did not start
Indian captain Savita defended, but the officials again gave Australia the first stroke, as the timer did not start, which was not India’s fault, but despite this, it weighed heavily on India’s morale and when given a second chance. Australia scored the goal.
After this two more Australian players scored the goal. As Team India’s morale broke, the Indian team lost 3-0 in the shootout. The Australian team reached the final for the fifth time in a row. The Indian team may have been out of the race to win the gold medal, but still they can win the bronze medal. The International Hockey Federation (FIH) is getting a lot of criticism in this matter. The audience had also expressed anger over the decision of the technical officials.
FIH apologizes
The FIH has apologized on this controversy and said that it will fully review the incident. The FIH said in a statement, “The shootout was accidentally started too early (the clock was not ready to operate) during the semi-final match between the Australia and India women’s teams at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games, for which we apologize.” The statement further said, “In such situations, there is a process of taking penalty shootouts again and it has been done. The FIH will conduct a thorough investigation into the incident so that such issues can be avoided in future.”