A fake quote is being attributed to Ricky Ponting falsely claiming that the former Australian captain criticised the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) calling it a "cricket mafia" after Australia's victory against India in the final of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 .
The fake quote is viral after India's defeat to Australia in the men's ICC ODI World Cup 2023 final by six wickets and 42 balls to spare. The Aussies clinched their sixth ODI World Cup defeating the hosts at Ahmedabad, Gujarat. The Indian team struggled to put up a good defendable target and ended up scoring a modest 240 runs in 50 overs, with Australia chasing it easily. Several commentators have attributed the low run scoring game to the pitch preparation which aided spinners.
The X (formerly know as Twitter) handle ASG (@ahadfoooty) posted a photo of Ponting with the caption, "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""
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The same fake quote is also being shared on Facebook with the false claim.
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FACT-CHECK
BOOM found that the viral quote is fake and that Ricky Ponting did not make any such statement against the BCCI after Australia won the ODI World Cup final against India.
We checked for recent statements made by Ponting and did not find any quote where he said, "This is a win of justice against cricket mafia."
We also checked Fox Cricket's latest report and found that Ponting had given no such quote to the news outlet.
In the Fox Cricket article titled "Ricky Ponting, Michael Vaughan and Nasser Hussain call out India for tactical pitch ‘backfire’", it quotes Ponting being critical of the pitch that was prepared in Ahmedabad saying that it backfired on India.
“It was very, very sub-continental conditions today,” , “A wicket preparation that has probably ended up backfiring on India to be totally fair,” the Fox Cricket report quotes Ponting saying during his match commentary. There is no mention of any statement as quoted in the viral tweet that is being attributed to Ponting.
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BOOM has previously fact-checked the same X handle @ahadfoooty for posting fake quotes. In October this year, the same blue tick X handle had posted a fake quote attributing it to Sunil Gavaskar falsely claiming that the legendary Indian batsman had criticised the BCCI for mismanaging the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023
BOOM has reached out to Ponting on Instagram for a response, the article will be updated on receiving one.