In a viral image post on X.com, two women cricketers were seen playing while wearing a Hijab. Both women can be identified as Ruby Haider Jhilik, and Shramin Akhtar Supta of the Bangladesh women’s national cricket team, as mentioned in the image. The image is circulating widely during the recent women’s ODI match between Bangladesh and New Zealand, and it is claimed to have been taken from the match.
The image was posted by an X handler – Mufti Salman Azhari. In his post, he captioned the image from the opening – “The veil is as essential for a woman as a shroud is for covering a corpse”. He continues to write, “Two cricketers from Bangladesh have proven that if she wants to observe the veil, she can do so everywhere. The shameless girls of today should take a lesson from this!!” The writer’s mentality can be observed, who praise a woman playing in Hijab and ask other women cricketers to also play wearing Hijab.
Multiple other users were also found sharing similar images which can be viewed here and here.
Fact Check
The DFRAC team collected information on the recent ODI match between Bangladesh and New Zealand. The game went well without any controversy, and New Zealand won the match by 100 runs. No images of women playing in a Hijab were seen throughout the game. We went through the official Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) X account, and there we found no images related to women playing in Hijab.
The highlights and media coverage of the match have no credible information regarding women playing in a Hijab. All the women from the Bangladesh women’s national cricket team wore standard cricket attire for women of Bangladesh. While ICC rules do permit players to play wearing a hijab (provided that it doesn’t obscure the logos) but a full face-covering Burqa is not permitted while playing.
After analysing the image more thoroughly, it is found to be AI-generated. As proof, we found a watermark of Gemini in the bottom corner. The body postures are found to be unnatural, inconsistencies and distortions are also observed, which suggests a manipulative AI-created image.
Conclusion
The image posted was found to be fake. It was created to mislead the viewer into believing that ICC is allowing women to play cricket while wearing a face covering, a Hijab. Bangladesh women’s national cricket team never mentioned any information regarding any changes in the official team attire. No woman played the match wearing a Hijab.
