Former captain Virat Kohli has jumped to the defence of India pacer Arshdeep Singh after his dropped catch of Asif Ali proved expensive in the five-wicket loss to Pakistan in the Asia Cup in Dubai on Sunday. Needing 34 runs, Asif miscued an attempted sweep off Ravi Bishnoi in the 18th over and as the ball ballooned up, the 23-year-old dropped a straightforward chance at short third man.

As Asif survived to take Pakistan to within two runs of victory, Arshdeep received a lot of flak on social media. Kohli, however, defended Arshdeep during the post-match media conference, saying anyone could have made such a mistake during a high-pressure game.

“Anyone can make a mistake, the situation was tight. It was a high-pressure game and mistakes can happen,” Kohli said. “I still remember I was playing my first Champions Trophy and the match was against Pakistan, I had played a very bad shot against Shahid Afridi. I was watching the ceiling till 5am, I was not able to sleep and I thought my career was over but these things are natural.”

“Senior players get around you, there is a good team environment right now, I give the credit to the captain and coach. The players learn from their mistakes. So one must accept his mistake, address it and look forward to being in that pressure situation once again,” he said.

But Arshdeep has faced brutal social media trolling with some users hacking into and editing his Wikipedia page, adding the objectionable term “Khalistani” by his name. Surprisingly, neither the India team management, including captain Rohit Sharma and head coach Rahul Dravid, nor anyone from the Board of Control for Cricket in India had publicly denounced these attacks and stood up for Arshdeep till late on Monday.

It may be recalled that as captain Kohli had hit out at the social media abuse aimed at Mohammed Shami following the team’s loss to Pakistan in last year’s T20 World Cup. Shami had gone for 43 runs in 3.5 overs in the match.

“Attacking someone over their religion is the most, I would say, pathetic thing that a human being can do,” Kohli had said at a media conference ahead of their next match against New Zealand. “Everyone has the right to voice their opinion and what they feel about a certain situation, but I personally have never ever even thought of discriminating (against) anyone over their religion,” Kohli had said.