Claim: A picture shows former Pakistan Army chief General (r) Qamar Javed Bajwa arriving at a stadium in Rawalpindi to watch a cricket match between Pakistan and England.
Fact: The image is, in fact, from 2019, when Bajwa went to London to watch a cricket match between Pakistan and South Africa.
On 4 December 2022, 24 News HD posted a photo to its Twitter account depicting ex-military chief, General Bajwa, allegedly at the Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium to watch a match between Pakistan and England. The relevant article on its website also contained the same image.
The tweet was captioned, “Gen Bajwa after retirement appears Pindi Stadium to watch Pak-Eng match.”
Other images — such as on Daily Jang, PK News, and AAP News — also came up.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check found through Reverse Image Search that the image is actually more than three years old from when Bajwa visited London to watch a match between Pakistan and South Africa.
The match was the 30th of 48 one-day international (ODI) matches, held in Week 4 of the 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup, or the 12th Cricket World Cup. Pakistan had won against South Africa.
We also found the image in a 23 June 2019 report by Dunya News.
The image has no connection to the recent Pakistan-England match held on 4 December 2022 in Rawalpindi — which Bajwa did watch.
The two other images — in which the ex-Army chief is seen sitting with his arms resting on a sofa and another where he’s standing alongside former military spokesperson Major-General Asif Ghafoor and waving — are not recent either.
The first was posted by Ghafoor on the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director-General’s official Twitter account in 2017 and AFP photographer Saeed Khan took the second one in 2019 — available on Getty Images — when Bajwa was seen waving to the crowd during the 2019 Cricket World Cup at Lord’s Cricket Ground in London.
Virality
Soch Fact Check found that the images were published not just by 24 News HD but by AAP News, Daily Jang, and PK News — here, here, here, here, here, here, and here — as well. They also appeared here, here, here, here, here, and here on Facebook.
Conclusion: The image is, in fact, from 2019 when General Bajwa went to the Lord’s Cricket Ground in London, United Kingdom, to watch a match between Pakistan and South Africa.