Are Anurag Thakur, Shahid Afridi, Jay Shah seen interacting during India vs Pakistan 2025 Asia Cup match? Fact Check

Claim: Footage shows Anurag Thakur, Shahid Afridi and Jay Shah were seen sitting during  India Vs Pakistan Asia Cup cricket match on September 14, 2025.

Conclusion: Misrepresentation. The image is an old one from the 2025 ICC Champions Trophy held during March-April 2025 and not the recent Asia Cup 2025.

Rating: Misrepresentation — 

Several social media users have shared videos of Anurag Thakur, Shahid Afridi and Jay Shah sitting together purportedly during the 2025 Asia Cup. The India-Pakistan match during the Asia Cup 2025, was held on September 14, 2025, at the Dubai International Stadium in Dubai, UAE. The claim is going viral because of heightened tensions during the match owing to the Pahalgam terror attack in April 2025. 

Post-match, the Indian team, led by Yadav, opted against the customary handshake with the Pakistani players as a mark of protest. Following this, Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) lodged an official complaint requesting the removal of match referee Andy Pycroft.

X user ‘nibraz88cricket’ shared such a claim suggesting that the three were ignoring border tensions and enjoying the India versus Pakistan match like “high school friends.” The post gained more than 889,000 views and over 3,000 likes which can be viewed below:

Anurag Thakur, Jay Shah, and Shahid Afridi are in the stadium watching the India Pakistan match like high school friends. But some twitter patriots wants to boycott the game vs Pakistan 😀 #INDvPAK #AsiaCup
pic.twitter.com/T7gB1CqkC7

— Nibraz Ramzan (@nibraz88cricket) September 14, 2025

Another X user shared the same claim : “Yesterday Anurag Thakur, shahid afridi and jay shah were sitting together and enjoying the match , indian commentators were sitting with Pakistani commentators and all made huge money , aur Aam aadmi stadium mai chilla chilla kr slogan lga rha tha ..”

Yesterday Anurag Thakur, shahid afridi and jay shah were sitting together and enjoying the match , indian commentators were sitting with Pakistani commentators and all made huge money , aur Aam aadmi stadium mai chilla chilla kr slogan lga rha tha .. pic.twitter.com/tKKSHlVgRC

— Sumit … (@mynameiskumar_) September 15, 2025

Other users have also shared such claims which can be viewed here, here and here

FACT CHECK

DigitEYE India decided to investigate this claim and discovered that it is misleading. The footage is not from the Asia Cup 2025 rather from the ICC Champions trophy held in Feb 2025. There is no evidence that Thakur, Afridi, or Shah attended the September 14, 2025, Asia Cup match together.

We first conducted a reverse image search of various keyframes from the video and came across a Facebook post from 11 March 2025. The post was captioned: “A rare moment! Jay Shah and Shahid Afridi share a light-hearted cricket moment together, and fans can’t stop talking about it.” 

Following this, we landed on a Youtube short which was published on 26 February. The title read : “Shahid Afridi and Jay Shah watched the Pakistan vs India match together at the Dubai Stadium”