A viral picture showing a man holding a placard in his hand during a cricket match is doing the rounds on social media. The placard states: ‘SORRY VIRAT SIR BUT BABAR AJAM IS GOD OF CRICKET FOR ME…. #7’.
A Facebook user posted the viral picture with a caption: Sorry Virat your era has gone now. You should take retirement but your era was very impressive.. You were the GOAT, but not now..
You can check the post here.
FACT CHECK
NewsMobile fact-checked the viral picture, and found it to be false.
Running a Reverse Image Search of the viral image, we identified a Facebook post, dated on April 18, 2018, on the official page of ESPN Cricinfo. Also, the flag of the Indian Premier League team — Mumbai Indians — in the image hints that the picture might be from an IPL match.
The Facebook post matches with the viral image except for the content on the placard. Here the placard mentions Sachin and MS Dhoni instead of Virat Kohli and Babar Azam.
The same image was found in a photo gallery of the match between Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings, posted on the official website of ESPN Cricinfo. The match was held on April 17, 2018.
Here too, we see that Sachin and MS Dhoni are written on the placard, proving that the viral image has been edited to spread misinformation. Moreover, the placard states MS Dhoni’s jersey no. 7, whereas Babar Azam’s jersey number currently is 56.
A clear difference between the two images can be seen below:
Therefore, we can conclusively say that the viral image showing a cricket fan calling Babar Azam the god of cricket is false.
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