Fact Check: Image of Afghanistan Cricketer Rashid Khan Waving The Indian Flag Is Altered

New Delhi (Vishvas News) In the Cricket World Cup 2023 match between Afghanistan and Pakistan on October 23, Afghanistan secured a resounding victory over Pakistan. However, a picture from this match has gone viral, that showed Afghanistan cricketer Rashid Khan holding the Indian national flag. The accompanying post claims that Rashid Khan waved the Indian flag after defeating Pakistan.

In our investigation, we found the image to be edited. In the original photograph, Rashid Khan had nothing in his hand.

What’s in the viral post?

A Facebook user named ‘Main Hindu Hun’ uploaded the viral picture on October 24,  with the caption, “After Afghanistan defeated Pakistan last night, the Afghan players raised the Indian flag and roamed around the entire field and thanked the people of India.”

You can view the archived version of the post here.

Investigation

To investigate the viral post, we conducted a reverse image search using Google. We found the same picture on espncricinfo.com, where Rashid Khan was pictured without the Indian flag in his hand. The description alongside the image read, “Afghanistan’s win over Pakistan has Rashid Khan Oct 23, 2023•ICC/Getty Images.

We also found this real image on several other news websites, none of which featured Rashid Khan holding the Indian flag. His hands remained empty in all the photographs.

For more confirmation, we reached out to sports expert and ESPN commentator Syed Hussain, who confirmed, “This picture is edited. You can see the original picture on espncricinfo.com.”

You can see a comparison between real and edited images in the collage below.

In the Cricket World Cup 2023 match between Afghanistan and Pakistan on Monday, October 23, hosted at MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai, Afghanistan beat the Pakistan team by 8 wickets.

We also conducted a social scan of the Facebook user’s profile who shared the misleading post, ‘Main Hindu Hun. We found that the user is followed by approximately 27,000 people and is based in Kurukshetra, Haryana.