AFC Women's Asian Cup 2022: 'Absolutely devastated', Twitterati react to India's COVID-forced withdrawal

In an unforeseen turn of events, hosts India were on Monday forced to withdraw from the AFC Women’s Asian Cup 2022.COVID-19 wreaked havoc within the Indian camp after they failed to field 13 players for their match against Chinese Taipei on Sunday.Eventually, with 12 players testing positive for COVID-19 and two others being injured, the match against Chinese Taipei was called off just minutes before scheduled start of play."Accordingly, Article 4.1 of the Special Rules Applicable to AFC Competitions during Covid-19 Pandemic ("Special Rules") applied," read an official AFC statement."In view of the above, India was unable to participate in the match, is to be held responsible for the match not taking place, and is considered as to have withdrawn from the competition," it added.Applying Article 6.5.5 of the Competition Regulations, all matches of India are cancelled and considered null and void. For the avoidance of doubt, all points and goals in those matches shall not be taken into consideration when determining the final rankings in the group pursuant to Article 7.3.In addition, in accordance with Article 7.4 of the Competition Regulations, the calculation of best third-placed Participating Teams among all groups shall be in accordance with Appendix 2 of the AFC Competition Operations Manual.Only three (3) Participating Teams will now be participating in Group A of the competition.The withdrawal comes as a big blow for India, who were looking to make it to the quarter-final stage in their bid to qualify for the FIFA Women's World Cup.Here's how Twitterati reacted to the incident:With inputs from ANI