A 42-second video of star all-rounder and Mumbai Indians captain Hardik Pandya speaking about his Team India mate Yuzvendra Chahal and his highly publicised recent divorce with choreographer Dhanashree Verma, which was finalised at a Bandra family court on March 20, 2025, is going viral on social media.
The archived version of the video can be seen here.
Fact Check
Newschecker ran a keyword search for “Hardik Pandya Chahal divorce,” which did not throw up any reports about Pandya commenting on Chahal and Verma’s divorce.
We then ran a reverse image search of keyframes, which led us to this 35-minute Youtube video uploaded by IPL team Gujarat Titans on April 20, 2023, where anchor Gaurav Kapoor talks to then skipper Pandya on how his journey has been with the Titans. At no point in the conversation did Pandya talk about the Chahal-Verma divorce, indicating that the viral video was edited. Also, the timeline of Chahal’s divorce does not align with this 2023 interview of Pandya, further raising our doubts on the viral video.
Video Analysis
From the 05:24 mark, Pandya is heard saying, “I did get a call from …”, but instead of “someone the other day,” as heard in the viral video, he actually says, “…from the other franchises”. A comparison of screengrabs confirms it is the same excerpt.
Screengrabs of the viral (left) and the Youtube videos (right).
From the 05:39 mark, Pandya is heard saying, “For me it was very important…,” similar to the viral video. A comparison of screengrabs confirms it is the same excerpt too.
Screengrabs of the viral (left) and the Youtube videos (right).
Similarly, at the 10:44 and 10:47 marks, he says, “be content and happy”, and “I always see the glass as half full rather than half empty”, same as in the viral video. A comparison of screengrabs confirms that the viral video was created by editing excerpts from the original interview together with visuals of Chahal, over which a different audio track, intended to be Pandya’s voice, is played.
Screengrabs of the viral (left) and the Youtube videos (right).
Screengrabs of the viral (left) and the Youtube videos (right).
Audio Analysis
Newschecker noticed that the purported voiceover of Pandya, played over the visuals of Chahal from the 00:05-00:19 part of the video, had a robotic, monotone quality, indicative of AI-generated media.
We extracted the suspicious 13-second audio from the viral video, ran it past Hive Moderation, an AI-content detection platform, which found it 99.8% likely to contain AI-generated or deepfake content. Also, the Hiya Deepfake Detector gave an authenticity score of 36/100, saying the models were uncertain about this voice. We ran the audio past Resemble AI’s Deepfake Detector, which stated that the voice was “Fake,” further confirming that the viral video was edited.
Also Read: Deepfake Video Of S Jaishankar Promoting Dubious Investment Platform Goes Viral
Conclusion
Digitally altered video of Hardik Pandya falsely shared as the cricketer talking about Yuzvendra Chahal and Dhanashree Verma’s divorce.
Source
Youtube video, Gujarat Titans, April 20, 2023
Hive Moderation
Hiya Deepfake Detector
Resemble Deepfake Detector
