The photo of Bangladesh women’s cricketers playing in burqas is not Real

15 October, 2025 1:12 pm

On October 10, the Bangladesh women’s cricket team faced the New Zealand women’s cricket team in the ongoing Women’s One Day Cricket World Cup in Guwahati, India. Chasing a target of 228 runs set by New Zealand, Bangladesh’s innings concluded at 127 runs. In this context, an alleged screenshot from the match was recently circulated online, showing Bangladesh women’s team cricketers Jhilik and Supta batting while wearing burqas. The photo was shared with the claim that the Bangladesh women’s cricketers played the match against New Zealand wearing burqas.

See posts on X with this claim here (Archive) and here (Archive).

See the post circulated on Facebook with this claim here (Archive).

See the post circulated on Threads with this claim here (Archive).

See the post circulated on YouTube with this claim here (Archive).

See the post circulated on Instagram with this claim here (Archive).

See the post circulated on TikTok with this claim here (Archive).

Fact-Check

An investigation by the Rumor Scanner team found that the circulated photo of the Bangladesh women’s cricketers wearing burqas is not real; rather, the fake image was created using artificial intelligence (AI) technology.

During the investigation, the highlights of the match between the Bangladesh and New Zealand women’s cricket teams were found on the website of the International Cricket Council (ICC). Nowhere in the highlights was any member of the Bangladesh women’s team seen wearing a burqa. At one point in the highlights, both Jhilik and Supta, who are shown in the circulated screenshot, are visible, but neither is wearing a burqa. Both are seen in the official Bangladesh cricket team jersey.

Additionally, various moments from the match were posted on the X accounts of the ICC Cricket World Cup and the Bangladesh Cricket Board – BCB, but no one was seen wearing a burqa in any of them.

Furthermore, a search with relevant keywords did not yield any evidence from mainstream media or reliable sources to support the claim that anyone from the Bangladesh team played while wearing a burqa in the aforementioned match.

Upon close observation of the circulated image, a watermark of Google’s Gemini AI can also be noticed in its bottom right corner.

Research on this matter revealed that Google DeepMind has unveiled an advanced image editing model called ‘Nano Banana,’ which is currently accessible through Google’s AI assistant, Gemini. This model offers users the ability to edit images in advanced and creative ways.

This confirms that the circulated photo is not authentic but was created through editing with artificial intelligence (AI) or digital technology.

Thus, an AI-edited image has been circulated with the claim that it shows female cricketers of the Bangladesh national team playing in burqas; which is edited.