Fact-check: Fake screenshot claims PM Shehbaz Sharif credited army for Asia Cup performance

Social media is circulating a screenshot of a supposed post on X (Twitter) by Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif congratulating his country's cricket team on winning the Asia Cup trophy, despite team's loss, and further crediting the victory to training provided by the Pakistan Army.

The post is fabricated and not genuine.

Claim

On September 28, a user on X (formerly known as Twitter) shared a screenshot of an apparent post by Pakistan's prime minister. The screenshot was captioned: "Pakistan Prime Minister tweets Pakistan won the Asia Cup, and thanks the Pakistan Army for training players like Haris Rauf".

In the screenshot, the prime minister allegedly congratulated the Pakistan cricket team for lifting the Asia Cup trophy on his official X account. He purportedly also wrote: "The victory's credit goes to Pakistan Army chief Syed Asim Munir, because a year ago the Pakistan Army trained the cricket team".

By the time of writing, the post had been viewed over 1.3 million times, liked more than 18,000 times, and shared 3,000 times.

Fact

The screenshot is self-generated, and no such message was posted on Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s X account.

The manipulated post is dated September 28. Geo Fact Check reviewed the timeline of the prime minister's social media account and found no such message posted on his account on that day.

Geo Fact Check then used Wayback Machine to determine if any such post had been shared and later deleted by the Pakistani prime minister. Wayback Machine also did not document any such post.

Additionally, Arshad Munir, the additional secretary for media at the Prime Minister’s Office, confirmed to Geo Fact Check that the screenshot circulating online was fake.

Verdict: The viral screenshot is fake. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif did not congratulate the cricket team or credit the Pakistan Army. No such post exists on his verified X account, and archived records confirm none was made.

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