WPL: No, 2 male commentators were not banned for their sexist remarks
A blurred photo of three men in a commentary box is being shared with the claim that two of them were banned for passing sexist remarks during the Women’s Premier League (WPL).
By Md Mahfooz Alam Published on 11 March 2023 4:48 PM IST
(Screengrab source: Facebook)
Hyderabad: A blurred photo of three men in a commentary box is being shared with the claim that two of them were banned for passing sexist remarks during the Women’s Premier League (WPL).
A text accompanying the image reads, “Two male commentators are banned from the WPL commentary box after one of them mistakenly said “women hahaha” after a player dropped a simple catch.”
(Screengrab source: Facebook)
The photo is being widely shared on Facebook.
Fact Check
NewsMeter ran a keyword search but could not find any news report of any commentator being banned in the ongoing WPL 2023.
We noticed the word “satire” written on the left side of the image and a Twitter handle, @hp_mode2, on the right side. We searched for the handle and found that it regularly tweets memes.
The viral photo was tweeted on 10 March and received over 2.2 million views at the time of writing this article.
When asked in the comments about the authenticity of the post, the account clarified that it was satire.
Next, we performed a reverse image search and found the image in a Deccan Herald article from 2019. It shows Sujith Somasundar, Vijay Bharadwaj, and Srinivas Murthy commentating in Kannada during an IPL match in 2019.
(Screengrab source: Deccan Herald)
Finally, we checked the official list of commentators for WPL 2023 and did not find the names of any of the three.
Hence, we conclude that the claim that two male commentators were banned from WPL 2023 for passing sexist remarks is false.
