Digitally Altered Photo of Rohit Sharma Holding Bhagavad Gita Viral

A digitally altered photo of cricketer Rohit Sharma holding the Bhagavad Gita is going viral online alongside a photo of MS Dhoni holding the same book to claim that the two have achieved great feats in their IPL captaincy journeys because of the "power of the Bhagavad Gita." BOOM found that the photo of Sharma holding the book 'Introduction to Bhagavad Gita' has been digitally altered.

After helping his team Chennai Super Kings clinch their 5th IPL title, MS Dhoni was seen in Mumbai on June 1 following a knee surgery. Photos of him sitting in a car holding the book 'Introduction to Bhagavad Gita' went viral online. The photo of Rohit Sharma, whose team Mumbai Indians has also won 5 IPL titles, holding the Bhagavad Gita is being shared in this context to claim that both cricketers have a great track record in the IPL because they read the same book.

A caption on Twitter reads, "Rohit has won 5 IPL trophies. Dhoni has won 5 IPL trophies. Two great captains in cricket history. You will always get success when you are on the right path. The Power of Bhagavad Gita 🔥🛐"

Click here to view the tweet and here for an archive.

The post is also circulating on Facebook.

Click here to view the post and here for an archive.

FACT-CHECK

BOOM found that the photo of Rohit Sharma holding the Bhagavad Gita is digitally altered. In the original photo, Sharma was seen holding a book called 'Cricket Drona'.

A reverse image search of the photo on Yandex led us to a tweet by Rohit Sharma from October 20, 2020. The photo was captioned, "A must read book #CricketDrona about a great man in the cricketing fraternity. Vasu sir has been one of the influential people in my career in guiding me through the right path and giving me confidence in my younger days which helped me a great deal."

Here is a comparison between the viral photo and the original photo:

'Cricket Drona' is written by Jatin Paranjpe, and is based on the late Vasoo Paranjape, the man who mentored prominent cricketers including Sachin Tendulkar and Sunil Gavaskar.