Photo credit: PTI
NEW DELHI: Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Thursday slammed a deep-fake video circulating on social media that falsely attributed comments to him praising Pakistan’s diplomatic handling of its ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2026 boycott.The AI-generated video, shared on X by a Pakistani user, showed Tharoor saying,“I think how Pakistan played is indeed brilliant, I don’t know what they would do on field but what they did diplomatically is absolute brilliance, Indian Cricket Board was completely pinned. Hands down. This serves as a lesson that good diplomacy can make even a weak nation appear as a Goliath, Pakistan has done it and I want to appreciate them for it, it is unthinkable.” The fabricated video was captioned as “Pakistan nailed India, says Shashi Tharoor adding, “Pakistan deserves to be appreciated to for taking a bold stand” in icct20worldcup2026.”Tharoor quipped that the video was fake, emphasizing that neither the language nor the voice belonged to him. In his post, Shashi Tharoor wrote, “Ai-generated “fake news” — and not even very good. Neither my language nor my voice.”In reality, he had earlier described Pakistan’s decision to boycott its February 15 group-stage match against India as “pretty disgraceful” and criticized the growing politicization of cricket. He urged all stakeholders to engage in urgent dialogue to resolve the escalating row.Tharoor’s remarks came after Pakistan announced it would skip its February 15 clash against India in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup. The Pakistan government confirmed the decision in a post on X, stating that the team “shall not take the field” against India.
