Video of India-Pakistan cricket skirmish is AI-generated
- Published on November 21, 2025 at 08:39
- 3 min read
- By Akshita KUMARI, Masroor GILANI, AFP India, AFP Pakistan
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Political tension and on-field friction have overshadowed matches between India and Pakistan since deadly cross-border clashes in May, but a video shared across social media that purportedly shows players from the cricket-mad neighbours scuffling is AI-generated. The video was traced to an account that posts AI-generated clips and contains visual errors indicative of synthetic content.
"Fight between Indian and pakistani players," reads the caption of a Facebook video shared on November 16, 2025.
It appears to show an Indian and a Pakistani cricket player aggressively grabbing at each other's jerseys as their teammates and umpires attempt to pull them apart.
"A scuffle is breaking out between Pakistan and India right in the middle of the pitch. The two batters nose to nose shouting at each other faces. Teammates are rushing in. Look at the umpires trying to split them bas karo, bas karo (stop it)," says a commentator, whose voice can be heard over the clip.
The same clip was also shared in similar Facebook, Instagram, Thread and X posts.
"Shame... India and Pakistan ruined cricket culture," read a comment on one of the posts.
Another said: "It's a game bro, what the hell are both of you doing?"
The video circulated as tensions between New Delhi and Islamabad simmered in the wake of military clashes in May -- a four-day exchange of artillery, drones and missiles that killed more than 70 people (archived link).
The fierce rivals met on the cricket field for the first time since the military conflict at the Asia Cup in Dubai in September, refusing to shake hands at all three of the matches they played against each other (archived link).
The animosity was also on display when the countries met at the women's T20 World Cup in Dubai and the men's Rising Stars Asia Cup tie in Doha, Qatar (archived link).
The friction, however, has not boiled over into a physical confrontation and there have been no official reports of players from the fierce sporting rivals having an on-field fight in Sharjah.
A reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the falsely shared video led to the same clip shared on Facebook on November 14 (archived link).
The video was shared on the page "JhatkaAi", which says it shares clip created with AI on its bio.
The bio contains links to the user's TikTok and Instagram accounts, which shared the same video on the same day (archived here and here).
AFP reached out to the user, Raees Ahmed, who said he made the clip using OpenAI's text-to-video model Sora.
"I do not remember the exact prompt but I asked it to create a video of a fight between Pakistani and Indian cricket players. I make such videos for fun and my profile clearly mentions the content is AI generated," he said on November 21.
The video also contains visual errors that indicate it was created with the help of AI, such as a disconnected arm and garbled text that appears to read "Psskan" rather than Pakistan.
AFP has previously debunked other misinformation stemming from India and Pakistan's cricketing rivalry.
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