An image of former Australian captain and cricketer Ricky Ponting is being shared to claim that he criticised the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and called it 'cricket mafia'.
What have users claimed?: The image of Pointing is being shared with a caption saying, "Ricky Ponting on Fox Cricket: "This is a win of justice against cricket mafia. Your money and power is still not winning World Cups for you. How embarrassing." Ponting owned India and BCCI."
An archive of the post can be found here.
(Source: X (formerly Twitter)/Screenshot)
At the time this report was being written, the post had garnered over a million views.
(More archives of similar claims can be found here, here, and here. )
What is the truth?: The Quint did not find any evidence to support the claim that Ponting criticised the BCCI after Australia won the 2023 ICC World Cup final against India in Ahmedabad, Gujarat.
How did we find that out?: We performed a keyword search on Google with the words "Ricky Ponting cricket mafia BCCI" and did not come across any information about the former cricketer criticising the BCCI.
Next, we searched for Ponting on Fox News and found an article titled, "Ricky Ponting, Michael Vaughan and Nasser Hussain call out India for tactical pitch ‘backfire’."
The article talked about the World Cup final match between India and Australia in Ahmedabad. Ponting pointed out that the pitch prepared for the match "backfired on India."
He further said, "It was very, very sub-continental conditions today. A wicket preparation that has probably ended up backfiring on India to be totally fair."
There was no mention of the viral quote in the report.
The article was published on 20 November.
(Source: Fox News/Screenshot)
No information available in the public domain: The Quint looked for news reports and went through Ponting's social media platforms but did not come across any information that backed the viral claim.
It should be noted that if Ponting had indeed made such a comment, there would have been several news reports indicating the same.
We have reached out to Ponting's team for inputs and the report will be updated as and when it is received.
Account previously called out for spreading misinformation: The handle called '@ahadfoooty' had previously shared a similar claim about former Indian cricketer Sunil Gavaskar purportedly criticising the BCCI for mismanagement of 2023 World Cup.
However, the quote turned out to be fabricated and had no truth to it. You can read our report here.
Conclusion: It is clear that a fabricated quote is being circulated to falsely claim that Ricky Ponting criticised the BCCI after Australia's win in 2023 ICC World Cup.
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