A video of Indian cricketer Hardik Pandya getting out of a car, with audio, 'Mumbai cha raja, Rohit Sharma!' (Rohit Sharma is Mumbai's king!) blaring in the background is being shared on social media platforms.
What is the claim?: Those sharing it have claimed that cricketer Rohit Sharma's fans heckled Hardik Pandya by sloganeering in favour of Sharma.
This claim comes at a time when the Mumbai Indians have named Hardik Pandya as the new captain of the franchise, replacing Rohit Sharma for the upcoming season of the Indian Premier League.
Several fans and supporters expressed their displeasure over this, reported the Hindustan Times.
Who shared it?: The Free Press Journal published a story about the viral video on 22 December.
An archive of the story can be found here.
(Source: Free Press Journal/Screenshot)
An archive of the post can be found here.
(Source: X/Screenshot)
Is this true?: This claim is false.
The chant has been added to the video to create a false perception of Sharma's fans heckling Pandya.
The video of Pandya could be traced back to 2020 when he was recorded at Mumbai airport.
How did we find out?: We found that the audio and video were taken from two separate occasions and were edited together, and then shared with the false claim.
VIDEO: We divided the viral video into several keyframes and ran a Google reverse image search on some.
We came across reports by Mid-day and Lokmat which included similar images and videos of Pandya as the viral video. These reports were published in 2020, much before the announcement of his Mumbai Indians captaincy.
Mid-day reported about Pandya being photographed at the Mumbai airport on 23 January 2020, after being dropped from the then India and New Zealand tour after he failed to clear the fitness test.
We compared a frame of the viral video with the images in the report and found similarities.
Here are the similarities between the two frames.
(Source: Altered by The Quint)
Similarly, Lokmat included an Instagram video which was uploaded on 21 January 2020 by paparazzi page, 'Bollywood Pap' in their report in which Pandya can be seen getting out of his car and entering the airport.
As per their Instagram bio, Bollywood Pap is owned by Indian paparazzo Viral Bhayani.
In this video, no heckling crowds raising chants in support of Sharma can be seen or heard.
AUDIO: We ran a relevant keyword search on YouTube and came across a video posted by a channel named, 'ScarV' on 21 November 2021.
It was uploaded with the title, "Mumbaicha Raja 'Rohit Sharma' Chants Indore crowd ,Rohit responds with a thumbs up!"
From the 0:22 seconds mark onwards, the crowd can be heard chanting the same slogan as the viral video. The tone and intensity also match with the viral video.
In its description, the channel noted that the clip dated back to a test match between India and Bangladesh that took place in the Holkar Stadium in Indore in 2019.
Conclusion: The chant audio has been added to Pandya's video to create a false perception. In the original video, no chants of this nature could be heard. Additionally, we found a video from 2019 from which the audio was taken.
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