By Anmol Alphonso
A fake quote is being attributed to Sunil Gavaskar falsely claiming that the legendary Indian batsman criticised the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) for mismanaging the ongoing ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 in India.
The fake quote is viral after the opening game between England and New Zealand in Ahmedabad on October 5, 2023 recorded poor footfall. Visualsof thousands of empty seats were seen at the Narendra Modi stadium which has a capacity of around 1,32,000, during the game. The BCCI has been criticised for its poor management of the World Cup as the schedule was finalised with less than two months to go delaying the sale of tickets.
The X handle ASG (@ahadfoooty) posted a photo of Gavaskar with the caption, ""Sunil Gavaskar on Star Sports:"I am ashamed to call myself Indian. This is the worst Cricket World Cup. Empty stadiums, no scoreboard, pathetic management from BCCI." Gavaskar didn't hold back.""
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A screenshot of the tweet with the fake quote is being shared widely on Facebook.
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FACT-CHECK
BOOM found that the viral quote is fake and that Sunil Gavaskar did not make any such statement against the BCCI over its handling of the World Cup in India.
We checked for recent statements given by Gavaskar and did not find any critical comments that he made against the board.
We also scanned recent videos uploaded by Star Sports where he is a commentator and did not find any video where the veteran cricketer made any similar remark or slammed the BCCI for mismanagement.
The recent videos of Star Sports which feature Gavaskar on September 28, 2023 can be seen below:
There were also no credible news reports of Gavaskar making critical comments against the board.
BOOM has previously debunked a similar fake quote attributed to Gavaskar in the past. During the Asia Cup in September this year, a fake quote was attributed to Sunil Gavaskar falsely claiming that he criticised the BCCI for 'politicising' and 'hijacking' the game of cricket. The venue of the tournament was shifted from Pakistan to Sri Lanka where many of the games were washed out by heavy rains.
