A screenshot of a tweet allegedly by Indian cricket player Virat Kohli is currently going viral on social media platforms. This tweet purportedly shows Kohli welcoming the Pakistan cricket team to India for the Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023 (here) and also stating that he will be hosting a party for the team at his house. We fact-check this claim in this article.
Claim: Virat Kohli tweeted a message welcoming the Pakistani cricket team to India for the Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023.
Fact: The tweet was not made by Virat Kohli. It came from a parody account impersonating Kohli. The official Twitter account of Virat Kohli has no such tweet. Hence, the claim made in the post is False.
We started by examining Virat Kohli’s official Twitter account to investigate the claim. As of the date of checking (03 October 2023), the last tweet from his account was an advertisement for Ocean Beverages. No welcome tweet to the Pakistani cricket team was found on the date mentioned, which is 27 September 2023.
Further, we scrutinised his Twitter activity in detail, skimming through the entirety of his account. There was no record of any tweet welcoming the Pakistani Men’s cricket team who arrived in India on 27 September 2023. On the said date, he made a Tweet congratulating the Indian Women’s team on winning the Gold medal in the ongoing Asian Games.
On close examination of the viral screenshot, we found that the Twitter handle in question (@amiVkohli) differed slightly from the official handle (@imVkohli) of Virat Kohli, confirming our suspicion of the tweet being from a parody account.
To sum up, the viral claim of Virat Kohli tweeting a welcome to the Pakistani Cricket Team for the Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023 is misleading. The tweet was posted by a false account impersonating Virat Kohli.
