Babar Azam was not offered a long term contract by Cricket Victoria

Claim: Cricket Victoria has contacted Babar Azam and offered him to play Sheffield Shield and Big Bash from Melbourne Renegades or Melbourne Stars.

Fact: Cricket Victoria has not made any such offers. Their CEO Nick Cummins publicly denied the claim on his official X account. 

On 10 January 2024, social media users on X and Facebook claimed that Pakistani cricketer Babar Azam was offered to play Sheffield Shield and Big Bash from  Melbourne Renegades or Melbourne Stars by Cricket Victoria. Comprehensive versions of the claim included information that as per this contract, Azam was offered to play as an opener in the Big Bash League, Marsh Cup and the Sheffield Shield cricket tournament.

Melbourne Renegades and Melbourne Stars are both Australian Twenty20 (T-20) franchise cricket teams based in Melbourne, the capital city of the Australian state of Victoria. The Big Bash League is a T-20 series and the Marsh Cup is a 50-over tournament. 

Fact or Fiction?

Cricket Victoria is the official governing body for sports in the Australian state of Victoria. Nick Cummins is the current Chief Executive Officer at Cricket Victoria. 

On 12 January 2024, he quoted the claim on his X account and called it fake news. We also found other sports news websites rejecting the claim here, and here. 

Virality

On X, the post was viewed 668,900 times and received over 3000 interactions. 

On Facebook we found several posts with thousands of interactions, some of them can be found here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. 

Conclusion:  Cricket Victoria has not made an offer to Babar Azam to play for Melbourne Renegades or Melbourne Stars. CEO of Cricket Victoria, Nick Cummins publicly denied the claim on his official X account. 

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