Olympic bronze-medallist Vijender Singh (75kg) crashed out due to a couple of controversial warnings in his semifinals, prompting an angry Indian team to lodge a protest, even as Suranjoy Singh (52kg) and Manoj Kumar (64kg) made their way to the finals with contrasting wins in the Commonwealth Games’ boxing competition on Monday.

Although India is set for its best-ever medal haul of seven, the colour of the metal yet to be decided, it was a throughly disappointing day for the nation’s boxers as they found themselves at the receiving end of some harsh refereeing — the most stunning being Vijender’s 3-4 loss to England’s 22-year-old former cadet champion Anthony Ogogo.

The Indian team has filed a protest against the refereeing.

“We have a filed protest. A jury will now sit after the last bout of the day and they will review the bout. Altering the result is also a possibility,” Indian Boxing Federation Secretary General Col PK Muralidharan Raja said.

If the result stands then Vijender, who won a silver in the previous CWG, would have to settle for a bronze this time.

All of Ogogo’s four points came through warnings handed to Vijender in the third round by Canadian referee Michael Summers.

The world number one Indian was leading 3-2 with barely 20 seconds left on the clock when he was handed a warning for holding his rival after an engrossing fight.

The decision seemed harsh after Vijender was penalised earlier in the bout as well for hitting his rival on the back of his head.

The capacity crowd at Talkatora Stadium booed Ogogo and chanted ‘cheater, cheater’ even as a visibly upset Vijender made his way out of the arena without speaking to the waiting media.

Ogogo, exulting after perhaps the biggest win of his career, said a “boxer of Vijender’s stature should not have acted the way he did in the ring”.

“If you think the warnings were harsh then even I didn’t get points for some of the clear punches I landed. Even if he had not been warned, I think I would have won,” Ogogo said.

Earlier, Commonwealth Championships gold medallist Amandeep Singh (49kg), Asian silver-medallist Jai Bhagwan (60kg) and nine-time national champion Dilbag Singh (69kg) had to be content with bronze medals after losing exciting semifinal bouts.

But Suranjoy Singh (52kg) and Manoj Kumar (60kg) assured India of at least silver medals by beating Pakistan’s haroon Iqbal and Valentino Knowles of Bahamas respectively.