Video of India's Sooryavanshi scrapping with Sri Lanka's cricketers is AI creation
- Published on June 23, 2026 at 08:40
- 3 min read
- By Akshita KUMARI, AFP India
India's teenage cricket sensation Vaibhav Sooryavanshi had a heated on-field exchange with a Sri Lankan player during a match on June 15, but footage circulating on social media purportedly showing him lifting his opponent off the ground is AI-generated. The video contains visual errors indicative of synthetic content, and the person who created the original video told AFP he made it using the Seedance video-generation model.
"He's only 15, but his attitude on the field says he's ready for any battle!" says the caption of an Instagram video shared on June 16, 2026.
The video, shared over 7,900 times, appears to show Indian cricketer Vaibhav Sooryavanshi landing a punch on a Sri Lankan player and then lifting them up into the air -- leading to a wider brawl.
The video's overlaid text reads, "Definitely it was not Vaibhav Sooryavanshi who started it :)"
The video was also shared in similar Facebook, Instagram and X posts.
"Whoever it was, that Sri Lankan definitely deserved to be beaten," says a comment on one of the posts.
Another says: "Sri Lanka players wanted to fight with Indians."
It circulated after Sooryavanshi blew his fuse in a match for India A -- the second tier of the national cricket team -- against Sri Lanka A on June 15 (archived link).
According to Indian media, Sri Lanka's Vishen Halambage exchanged words with departing Indian batters before Sooryavanshi responded and shoved him. Sri Lankan wicketkeeper Niroshan Dickwella stepped in to calm tempers and separated the two players.
But there have also been no official reports of Sooryavanshi landing a punch on any Sri Lankan players.
A comparison with broadcast footage of the on-field spat also shows the circulating video does not depict the altercation.
A keyword search on Google led to footage of the confrontation shared by The Times of India on its Facebook page on June 15 (archived link).
The footage shows Sooryavanshi shoving Halambage in the chest before they are separated.
The video also contains visual errors that indicate it was created with the help of AI, such as players appearing to merge into one another and disappear, players who have similar faces and the same jersey number, and numbers and names appearing to merge into each other on the back of players' jerseys.
An analysis of the video using the Hive Moderation detection tool found it was "likely to contain AI-generated or deepfake content" (archived link).
A reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the video led to the same clip shared on Instagram on June 16 (archived link).
The video was shared on the page "mymindbase.aii", which says on its bio that it shares clips created with AI.
The caption reads, "What if Vaibhav Sooryavanshi really snapped after the Super Over? We recreated this viral cricket controversy using Al and turned it into a cinematic video. Want the exact prompt we used?"
Responding to an AFP enquiry, Dheeraj Goel -- a member of the page's team that creates AI videos -- said he made the clip using the Seedance 2.0 AI video-generation model and just exaggerated the original video.
"I clearly stated in both the video caption and at the end of the video that it was created using AI. The content was published as an AI-generated creative project and was never intended to be presented as real footage," he said on June 18.
AFP has previously debunked similar AI-generated videos presented as genuine footage of Indian cricketers involved in on-field fights.
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