Sanjeeb Phuyal is the Nepali Editor of Newschecker based in Kathmandu, Nepal. He brings over a decade of experience writing and editing news. In his previous stint, he worked as online editor for The Kathmandu Post. With the growth of social media platforms—and the ever-growing competition amongst media outlets to churn out breaking news, he feels that fact-checking every piece of information has become essential today than ever before.
Claim
Nepali national cricket team captain Rohit Poudel saying Sandeep’s absence has taken its toll on Nepal’s performance.
Fact
Viral video shows an old interview of Rohit before Nepal’s match against Netherlands in ICC WC Qualifier.
A 9-second video allegedly showing Nepal’s national cricket team skipper Rohit Poudel saying that Nepal’s performance has been badly affected due to the absence of star cricketer Sandeep Lamichhane is going viral on TikTok.
Earlier on March 5, the Netherlands had defeated hosts Nepal by four wickets in the final to win the Nepal Tri-Nation T20I Series trophy at the TU Cricket Ground in Kathmandu.
Against this backdrop, TikTok user @nirmalbhatta27 posted a video of Captain Rohit Poudel speaking on the microphone. The footage is accompanied by a melancholic tune. Text superimposed on the video reads, “Rohit Poudel says, how can we win the match without good players? Our bowling is not attacking without Sandeep Lamichhane. We don’t have spinners, Kushal Mall’s record was beaten today because of Sandeep’s absence. Even India was afraid when there was Sandeep in our team. But today they are easily defeating us on our home grounds.”
The video posted on March 28 has garnered 150 likes, 3 users have shared and two people commented on it.
The archived version of the TikTok video can be seen here.
Newschecker found the claim to be misleading.
Fact Check /Verification
To check the authenticity of the claim made in the viral video, Newschecker took a key frame from the viral video and conducted a reverse search on it. The search, however, didn’t find any results matching the viral video.
Then we analysed the video and conducted a search on YouTube by using relevant keywords ‘Rohit Poudel Interview’ and found a video dated June 23, 2023, published on the YouTube channel named Sportz Doze whose frame exactly matched the viral video.
On checking the video, we found that the video depicted a pre-match interview of Rohit Poudel before Nepal’s match against Netherlands in the ICC World Cup Qualifiers. In the video, Rohit says, “I think we have learned so many things today. With the new ball, we were relieved. But having said that we dropped a few catches. We want to improve in our fielding. We are looking forward to the match against the Netherlands.” We listened to the entire 1.35-minute interview but didn’t find Rohit anywhere taking the name of Sandeep Lamichhane.
Further, we found several articles (see here, here) confirming that the Netherlands defeated Nepal by seven wickets in their last group stage match of the ICC World Cup Qualifier.
On checking an article published on Kathmandu Post online, we found that Nepal succumbed to a seven wicket defeat against the Netherlands in their last group stage match of the ICC World Cup Qualifier at the Takashinga Sports Club in Harare, Zimbabwe on Saturday.
Thus, our findings clearly showed that the viral video shows an old interview of Rohit Poudel and he has not made any comments saying that Nepali cricket team can’t win any match in the absence of good players like Sandeep Lamichhane.
Conclusion
No, the viral video doesn’t show Nepali national team captain Rohit Poudel saying Nepal has lost to the Netherlands because of Sandeep’s absence.
Result: False
Sources
Sportz Dose, June 23, 2023
Kathmanadu Post, June 24, 2023
ABP Live , June 24, 2023
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Sanjeeb Phuyal is the Nepali Editor of Newschecker based in Kathmandu, Nepal. He brings over a decade of experience writing and editing news. In his previous stint, he worked as online editor for The Kathmandu Post. With the growth of social media platforms—and the ever-growing competition amongst media outlets to churn out breaking news, he feels that fact-checking every piece of information has become essential today than ever before.
