Cricket related page spreading fake quotes about cricket
Recently, a comment of Sourav Ganguly, the former captain of the Indian cricket team, was seen going viral on social media. It was claimed that, Ganguly said, “Bangladeshi fans are waiting for Shakib and Tamim to have a friendship reunion more than to win a trophy”. However, Dismislab could not find such comment in any mainstream media or on Ganguly’s verified Facebook or Twitter page.
A photocard with a fake quote in Ganguly’s name, was uploaded on Facebook by a page called “Cricket Zone 24” on January 28. The post has over 42,000 reactions and 700 comments. The photocard has the logo of Cricket Zone 24. Also, another type of photocard with the same comment was uploaded from a page called “24 Hour Sports News”. This one has 275 reactions. A few short videos have also been uploaded to YouTube (1, 2, 3) using these photocards of fake comments.
None of the posts mentioned when or where Ganguly said this. No sources were mentioned either. This is not the first time “Cricket Zone 24” shared photocards with such fake comments. In December 2023 alone, three posts containing fake quotes in the name of several sports-persons were circulated from this page. These fake quotes were also factchecked by Bangladeshi factchecking organizations.
Cricket Zone 24 was a meme page which was launched under the name “Troll Cricket Memes” on 13 March 2023. Later, on 21 May, it was renamed as “Cricket Zone 24”.
On December 17, 2023, a fake quote in the name of Bangladesh national team cricketer, Nazmul Hossain Shanto, was circulated from Cricket Zone 24. In which it was claimed that Shanto said, “We lost this match because of Soumya Bhai”. The post was circulated after Bangladesh’s defeat in an ODI match against New Zealand. But according to a Fact-check report published later on, Shanto made no such comment. Soumya Sarkar couldn’t manage to score a single run in that match.
Three days later, on December 21 another post with another fake quote went viral from the same page. This time the victim was Bangladesh Cricket Board president, Nazmul Hasan Papon. It was claimed in the photocard that he had announced a prize money of Tk 20 lakh for the Under-19 Asia Cup winning cricketers. It was also a false claim. And another fact-check report was published about the bogus claims as well.
On December 26, another post with similar fake claims was published from this page. This time the quote was about former Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Akhtar. It was claimed here that Shoaib Akhtar said, “If Babar Azam were to be auctioned in the IPL today, he would have cost 30-35 crores”. Again, a fact-check report confirmed this statement to be false. This post had over 9,500 reactions on Facebook.