Claim:The video shows Bangladeshi cricketer Mustafizur Rahman announcing that he will not play in the IPL and calling on others to boycott the IPL.
fact:That claim is false. The video has been modified using AI.
HYDERABAD: The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has directed Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) to release Bangladesh bowler Mustafizur Rahman in view of the ongoing tension between India and Bangladesh.
Indian Premier League (IPL) team KKR is owned by Red Chillies Entertainment, which is associated with Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan. The franchise secured him for a record Rs 9.2 crore in the December auction.
On December 3, KKR announced the release of Mustafizur Rahman on social media platform X.
In this regard, a video of Mustafizur speaking in Bengali and asking people to boycott the IPL is going viral on social media.
“Thank you to the people of Bangladesh who love me so much. Please boycott the IPL. I will never play in the IPL again. Any insult to me is an insult to the motherland,” he is purportedly heard saying in the video.
The video was shared on Facebook with the title “Boycott IPL, boycott!” (Translated from Bengali) (Archive)
fact check
NewsMeter has found that this viral claim is false. The video is processed using artificial intelligence (AI).
A keyword search did not find any news reports or credible social media accounts claiming that Bangladesh bowlers called for a boycott of the IPL after being released by KKR.
Where is the video from?
Using a reverse image search of keyframes from viral videos, we discovered another video of Mustafizur Rahman speaking to the camera. The environment and his facial expressions in the video appeared similar to those in the viral video, except for his remarks.
This video was shared on Instagram by user bdcrictime.com on December 16, 2025. The caption reads, “I'm so happy to be a part of Kolkata Knight Riders. See you again: Mustafiz.”
In the video, Mustafizur can be heard saying in Bengali: “Hello KKR fans, my name is Mustafizur Rahman. I am happy and excited to be part of the KKR team. See you soon.”
Video analysis
A side-by-side comparison of screenshots from the viral video and the Instagram video revealed that Mustafizur Rahman's Instagram video was used to modify and create the viral video.
It turns out that Mustafizur's voice in this video is different from Mustafizur's voice in the videos available online. Lip movements also appear delayed and the texture of the video appears too smooth. These are common signs that content has been modified using AI.
Using Hive Moderation, an AI detection tool, we found that the video likely contained AI-generated or deepfake content. The tool determined the video's total score to be 99.3 percent.
Hiya Deepfake Audio Detector also determined that the audio in the viral video was generated by AI and had less than a 1% match with live human markers.
Therefore, NewsMeter concludes that the viral claim is false.
