A set of old videos showing people celebrating on the streets and in front of their televisions is being falsely shared on social media as footage of Afghan fans celebrating India’s victory over New Zealand in the 2025 ICC Champions Trophy final
BOOM analysed the footage being shared, and found them predating the ICC Champions Trophy final on March 9, 2025, where India defeated New Zealand by four wickets.
X handle Jitendra pratap singh (@jpsin1) posted one of the videos with a Hindi caption which translates to English as, "India's victory was celebrated with great pomp in Afghanistan's capital Kabul. Afghans celebrated India's victory in a grand manner. All the footage is being shown in Pakistani media and people are feeling proud that despite being a Kafir country, India has made Muslim Afghans its friends." BOOM has previously fact-checked this handle for sharing misinformation.
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Another video showing another compilation of Afghan fans celebrating is being shared on YouTube and X with the same false claim.
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FACT-CHECK
BOOM found that the viral video showing Afghan fans celebrating are unrelated to India's victory over New Zealand in the ICC Champions Trophy final, as they predate the match.
CricCrazyJohns, a cricket influencer handle had posted one of the viral videos of Afghan fans celebrating on X on February 27, 2025, with the caption, "Afghanistan fans celebrating their victory in Champions Trophy."
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In one of the videos, where the TV is on, we can see the match's final scoreboard which shows Afghanistan beating England, indicating it is from the Champions Trophy group match between these countries.
Taking a hint from the viral video, we noticed that the video had the logo of the Instagram handle @zekria.zeer. Upon checking the profile, we found that both the viral compilation videos were posted by this handle on February 27, 2025.
The handle’s bio states that the user is a video creator from Afghanistan. He had posted both these videos showing Afghans celebrating on the streets after their team defeated England in the Champions Trophy on February 26, 2025.
During the group stages of the Champions Trophy 2025, Afghanistan had defeated England by 8 runs on February 26, 2025. This was considered a big upset due to England being knocked out of the tournament.
The same viral compilation videos can be seen below:
BOOM could not independently verify the origins and context behind all the visuals in the compilation. However the viral footage predate India's victory in the Champions Trophy finals, and is therefore unrelated to the ensuing celebrations.
