The Pakistan government initially said its team would boycott the Group A match against India on February 15 in the T20 World Cup, even though it approved the team to travel to Sri Lanka for the tournament.
After intensive talks, facilitated by the ICC with officials from Pakistan and the Bangladesh Cricket Board, Pakistan withdrew its boycott and agreed to play the match.
In the above context, a video of BCCI President Rajiv Shukla has gone viral on social media.
In the video, Rajiv can be allegedly heard saying, “Well, I’m delighted to see the outcome of the deliberation initiated by ICC representatives, you know, on the repeated request by BCCI to convince Pakistan to play against India. It is a good solution, the amiable solution which has been found to give priority to cricket and importance to the game…”
An X account shared the video with the caption, “Rajiv Shukla statement is a slap in the face to those Indians who were propagate that Pakistan has bowed down to the #BCCI & #ICC
In fact had slapped the by refusing to play #INDvsPAK and told them the truth. #CricketTwitter #T20WorldCup #T20WorldCup2026 (sic)”
SouthCheck found that the claim is false. The viral video is AI-manipulated.
On a Google reverse image search, we found that the same video was shared by X handle of ANI on February 10.
The video was shared with a caption that reads, “Delhi | On Pakistan to play against India at T20 cricket World Cup, BCCI Vice-President Rajeev Shukla says, ‘I am delighted to see the outcome of the deliberations initiated by ICC representative, supervised by the ICC Chairman and the representatives who had gone to Lahore to talk to Pakistan Cricket Board as well as Bangladesh Cricket Board. It’s a good solution, an amicable solution which has been found to give priority to cricket’s importance in the game. This is what has been done. So, all kudos to ICC for taking this initiative, resolving the whole issue and bringing cricket back to the forefront. This is a big achievement as far as ICC is concerned. So I would like to thank ICC for taking this initiative and bringing Pakistan to the table, ultimately deciding for Pakistan to play in the Colombo match. It’s good news for all of us and the scheduled match for 15th February in Colombo will take place. Pakistan will also play. So now this World Cup will also be a big success story. Bangladesh's feelings have also been assaged as far as these negotiations are concerned, and some relief has been given to their board, and they are also happy. In fact, they have praised ICC for its efforts. It's a win-win situation for everybody and I'm happy that the match would take place and World Cup will be a successful event.”
However, in the video shared by ANI, we could not hear Shukla saying that the BCCI had made repeated requests to the ICC.
Thus, we can say that the viral claim where Shukla is heard saying, “Well, I am delighted to see the outcome of the deliberations initiated by the ICC representative, you know, on the repeated requests by BCCI to convince Pakistan to play against India. It's a good solution, amicable solution,” is fabricated.
However, in the video, we could not hear Shukla saying that the BCCI had made repeated requests to the ICC.
We further checked with the AI audio detector tool, Deepometer, and found that the audio is AI-generated.
Moreover, Rajiv Shukla also took to X on February 11, 2026, to suggests that the viral video has AI-generated. Shukla wrote, "The video circulating with altered, AI-generated audio in my name is fake. @realshoaibmalik, @ARYNEWSOFFICIAL and @Salman_ARY, please stop circulating this misleading content. For reference, here is my original video."
Hence, we can ascertain that the viral video is AI-manipulated.
