India and Pakistan faced each other on the cricket field for the first time since Operation Sindoor during the Asia Cup on 14 September 2025, in Dubai. Despite widespread calls to boycott the clash following the Pahalgam terror attack, the match went ahead as scheduled, with India registering a convincing seven-wicket victory.
Amidst this, a photo of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh with Nationalist Congress Party (SP faction) chief Sharad Pawar, meeting the Pakistan national cricket team, is going viral on social media (here, here, and here). The posts claim that the Pakistan team visited India shortly after the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attacks in November 2008, and that Manmohan Singh, along with Sharad Pawar, met them. Let’s verify the claim made in the post in this article.
Claim: The photo shows former PM Manmohan Singh and Sharad Pawar meeting the Pakistan cricket team during their tour of India shortly after the 26/11 Mumbai attacks in 2008.
Fact: The viral photo does not show former PM Manmohan Singh and Sharad Pawar meeting the Pakistan cricket team shortly after the 26/11 Mumbai attacks in November 2008. The photo is from 30 March 2011, when PM Manmohan Singh and Pakistani PM Yousuf Raza Gilani met the Pakistan team before the India-Pakistan World Cup semi-final in Mohali. India did not tour Pakistan after the 26/11 attacks, as the series scheduled for January–February 2009 was cancelled due to security concerns. Hence, the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
Upon close observation of the viral photo, we found that the then Pakistan cricket team captain Shahid Afridi’s jersey has “ICC Cricket World Cup 2011” written on it, indicating that this photo is likely from the India vs Pakistan match during the 2011 World Cup, which was co-hosted by India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka.
We conducted a Google keyword search and found that the viral photo is archived on the PMO website. The caption states that Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and Prime Minister of Pakistan Yousuf Raza Gilani interacted with the Pakistan cricket team during the India-Pakistan World Cup semi-final at Punjab Cricket Association Stadium, Mohali, on 30 March 2011.
We also found multiple media reports (here, here, and here) confirming that the prime ministers of both countries met with the cricket players before the match.
According to reports (here, here), after the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks in November 2008, India’s scheduled cricket tour of Pakistan in January–February 2009 was cancelled. The terror attacks, which took place from 26 to 29 November 2008, killed 166 people and injured over 300, creating serious security concerns. Following the tragedy, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) called off the tour, and the Indian team did not travel to Pakistan for the series.
To sum up, the Photo shows former PM Manmohan Singh meeting the Pakistan cricket team during the 2011 World Cup, not shortly after the 26/11 Mumbai attacks
