Did Pat Cummins redirect his $50,000 donation from PM CARES Fund to UNICEF citing lack of transparency? Fact Check
Claim : Australian cricketer Pat Cummins was about to donate $50,000 to the PM CARES Fund but redirected it to UNICEF since the PM CARES Fund lacks transparency.
Conclusion : The claim is misleading. Cummins did switch his $50,000 donation from PM CARES to UNICEF in 2021. However, there was no mention of any sort of lack of transparency, rather Cummins followed ‘Cricket Australia’ which also had made donation to UNICEF.
Rating : Misleading — 
Several users on social media have claimed that Pat Cummins was about to donate $50,000 to the PM CARES Fund during the 2021 covid crisis but then redirected it to UNICEF because of a lack of transparency. Verified X user ‘Amisha_Go’ shared such a post with a part of the caption claiming : “He realised PM CARES Fund lacks transparency,No one will ever know where money goes”. The post gained more than 64,000 views and can be viewed below –
Aussie cricketer Pat Cummins was about to donate $50,000 to PM CARES Fund,But he changed his mind & Donated it to UNICEF India
He realised PM CARES Fund lacks transparency,No one will ever know where money goes
Pat Cummins & Mani Shankar Aiyar both are way ahead of their time pic.twitter.com/8GKbhf9dcu
— Amisha Gokhale (@Amisha_Go) October 5, 2025
The above post also includes a screenshot of a 2023 Bar and Bench post about the fund’s legal status to support allegations of opacity. Other users have shared similar claims which can be viewed here and here
PM CARES Fund, established in March 2020, is a public charitable trust not governed by RTI laws and audits are conducted by independent firms. The included screenshot from Bar and Bench accurately reports a 2023 government affidavit to the Delhi High Court, stating the fund isn’t created under the Constitution or any parliamentary law.
FACT CHECK
DigitEYE India decided to fact check this claim and discovered that it is misleading. While Pat Cummins did switch his $50,000 donation from PM CARES to UNICEF in 2021, he did mention anything about a lack of transparency.
We first conducted a keyword search with the phrase “Pat Cummins donates $50,000 to PM CARES fund” to learn about the matter. Cummins’ initial announcement on April 26, 2021, specified the donation to PM CARES for oxygen purchases. In his statement, he mentions that he has made this “specifically to purchase oxygen supplies for India’s hospitals”. View his statement which was posted on his X account here.
— Pat Cummins (@patcummins30) April 26, 2021
On May 3, 2021 he updated that he allocated it to UNICEF, praising Cricket Australia’s partnership with the organization for procuring oxygen generation plants. Multiple reports including one published by Times Now confirms this shift. Another report by Hindustan Times also confirms this, observing how “Cummins seems to have changed his mind following Cricket Australia’s financial assistance to UNICEF Australia.”
Pat Cummins on May 3, 2021 posted an update, congratulating Cricket Australia by saying : “Terrific work @CricketAus FYI I ended up allocating my donation to UNICEF Australia’s India COVID-19 Crisis Appeal. If you’re able to, please join many others in supporting this here https://india.unicef.org.au/t/australian-cricket” View the post here.
Terrific work @CricketAus
FYI I ended up allocating my donation to UNICEF Australia’s India COVID-19 Crisis Appeal.
If you’re able to, please join many others in supporting this here https://t.co/SUvGjlGRm8 https://t.co/1c0NE9PFdO
— Pat Cummins (@patcummins30) May 3, 2021
Cummins followed the path of Cricket Australia and redirected his contributions to UNICEF. No report by any credible media outlet reports that his decision was governed due to a lack of transparency in the PM CARES Fund. However he did not specify the reason for redirecting his contributions to UNICEF.
Thus, the claim is misleading.
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