“A lie can travel half way around the world”- Gautam Gambhir on his viral middle-finger video clip in Asia Cup 2023

Gautam Gambhir clarified that the crowd was chanting anti-India slogans at him.

Former India opener Gautam Gambhir has posted a hard-hitting message on social media platform X about his recent viral video clip in which he is caught showing the middle finger to a section of the crowd during a match in Asia Cup 2023.

In the video that went viral on Twitter, Gautam Gambhir was seen walking back to the stands when he was distracted by chants by the crowd, who seemingly called Virat Kohli or MS Dhoni’s name, and then Gautam Gambhir turned back to show his middle-finger towards them.

He received quite some rage on social media as fans felt that it was not a gesture from someone like Gautam Gambhir, who was part of India’s 2007 World T20 and 2011 World Cup winning teams and played a huge role in both matches to help India win the title in both tournaments.

However, after much outrage, Gautam Gambhir met with the reporters outside the Kandy stadium and clarified that the video doing rounds on social media is a fabricated one, and instead the crowd was chanting anti-India slogans and commenting on Kashmir.

"Whatever is shown on social media, there is no truth to it. People show what they want to show on social media. What actually happened was that there were anti-India slogans being chanted; I heard chants of ‘Hindustan Murdabad’. There were also slogans about Kashmir. So there will obviously be a reaction, one way or another, or laughter at it. There were a couple of Pakistani people, and they were shouting anti-India stuff. Obviously, it was a natural reaction. I can’t hear things being said about my country," Gambhir told the media on Monday, September 4.

I love our players & I love my country, says Gautam Gambhir on the middle finger gesture controversy

Apart from Gambhir clarifying that the video was fabricated and tampered with, multiple eagle-eyed fans on social media quickly dissected how there were glaring differences that should’ve been noted.

The video was claimed to be from the India vs Nepal encounter, but today Gambhir is visibly wearing a colored shirt with the Asia Cup logo on it. However, the video shows Gambhir wearing light-colored apparel, and he can be seen wearing the same shirt during the India vs Pakistan encounter two days ago at the same venue.

Therefore, his statement holds true that the video was tampered with, as there were Pakistani fans during that match on September 2nd who could have tried to get a reaction from Gambhir given that he has shown great patriotism towards India.

Later on, Gambhir shared a message for his fans and the fans of the Indian team, saying that he loves his country and the players and reacted as Indians would if they heard anything against their nation.

He posted: "A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. Not everything is as it seems. Any Indian would react like I did to the kind of slogans used against our nation. I love our players, and I love my country."