Pakistan reversed course on its earlier threat to boycott the T20 World Cup match against India. After initially saying its team wouldn’t take the field on February 15 in protest over Bangladesh’s exclusion from the tournament, the government ordered the play as scheduled, ending the boycott row.
In the above context, a video of Congress leader and Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor has gone viral on social media. In the video, he is heard saying, “I believe Pakistan’s performance was truly impressive. While their actions on the field remain uncertain, their diplomatic efforts were nothing short of brilliant. The Indian cricket board found itself completely outmanoeuvred. This situation demonstrates that effective diplomacy can empower a nation to appear much stronger than it might seem. Pakistan has achieved this, and I commend them for it. It is remarkable and thought-provoking.”
The video is shared with a caption that reads, “Indian politician/writer Shashi Tharoor makes a startling revelation: Pakistan has done the unthinkable. The Indian Cricket Board was completely pinned. Pakistan deserves to be appreciated for taking a bold stand & proving their position.”
SouthCheck found that the claim is false. The viral video is AI-generated.
On a Google reverse image search, we found that the same video was shared by India Today’s YouTube channel on February 10.
In the video, Shashi Tharoor is giving his opinion on India Pakistan match. However, in the video, he is heard speaking Hindi. He says, “I do not like if politics come in cricket and sports. I think sports is a different field. So, one should let people play sports while politicians and politics should work somewhere else...” In none of these conversations does he make any statement similar to the viral statement.
Thus, we checked if the audio was AI-generated, with the help of the Deepfake-O-Meter tool and found that the audio was likely AI-detected.
Moreover, we also found that Shashi Tharoor also took to his X account to debunk the viral claim. He said that the video was AI-generated. He tweeted, “Ai-generated fake news” — and not even very good. Neither my language nor my voice.”
