India faced a heartbreaking defeat against Australia in the final of the 2022 Commonwealth Games to settle for the silver medal. The Harmanpreet Kaur-led team lost the match by nine runs from a position they were looking to win comfortably. A middle-order collapse became the reason for the defeat and India’s curse in the knockout games continued to haunt them.
While the Indian players accepted their mistake and promised to return with a better result next time, it was a tough pill to swallow for the Indian cricket team fans. They could not tolerate seeing their team failing in yet another big tournament and not finishing on the winning side. So, the fans not only blamed their team players but also started calling Australia, “cheaters”.
Many Indian fans called out Australia for playing with a COVID-19-positive player. Notably, Australia played Tahlia McGrath who had tested positive for the virus just a few hours before the match started. This did not go well with the Indian team fans as they bombarded Alyssa Healy’s comment section with “cheater” tweets. “cheaters won. nothing new,” wrote one user while another wrote, “why no one is asking how a covid positive player was playing yesterday?”
There were many other hate tweets. So, Healy found a way to give it back. The Australian wicketkeeper batter shared a cryptic picture. Healy shared a picture of a small boat with a big text “SALTY” written on it.
The Aussie cricketer soon cleared the air saying it was a normal picture.
While Indian fans did not like the idea of allowing a Covid-positive player, India's captain was more than happy to do it. Harmanpreet Kaur was asked about her stand and she clearly stated that although they were informed at the toss about the situation, they had no issues with McGrath playing.
"They informed us before the toss. That was something not in our control. The CWG had to take a decision and we were okay with it since she wasn't very ill, so we decided to play. We had to show sportsman spirit. I'm happy we didn't say no to Tahlia, it (missing the final) would've even very hard-hitting for her,” said Kaur.