Manmohan Singh did meet Team India post 2007 T20 World Cup win; viral claim is false

What’s the claim?

On June 29, 2024, India won the ICC Men's T20 Cricket World Cup 2024 at Kensington Oval in Barbados, defeating South Africa by seven runs. Following this victory, a social media post resurfaced, claiming that after India's 2007 T20 World Cup win, Sonia Gandhi, president of the Indian National Congress (INC), was photographed with the victorious team instead of then-Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The post includes a photo of Gandhi posing with the 2007 Indian cricket team led by then-captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

A user on X (formerly Twitter) shared the image with a caption in Hindi, translated as: "The Indian cricket team won the World Cup in 2007 under captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni, with Rajiv Shukla as acting BCCI president. The photoshoot was done with Sonia Gandhi instead of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. No journalist questioned Sonia Gandhi's authority to be photographed with the team. Consider how the Congress party abused its power and diminished the dignity of the Prime Minister's office." Archived versions of similar posts can be found here and here.

Screenshot of claims made online. (Source: X/Modified by Logically Facts)

However, the claim that Manmohan Singh was not photographed with the 2007 World Cup-winning Indian cricket team is false.

What we found

Our investigation uncovered a photo gallery dated October 30, 2007, in the archives of the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) website. It includes an image of Prime Minister Singh, his wife Gursharan Kaur, and other dignitaries posing with the victorious Indian cricket team led by Dhoni. The image caption reads, "The Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, with the Twenty-Twenty Cricket Team, in New Delhi on October 30, 2007." Another picture shows Singh and his wife with team captain Dhoni at the same event.

Manmohan Singh posing for a photograph with the 2007 World Cup winning team. (Source: PMO)

The Times of India published photographs of Singh meeting the Indian cricket team on October 30, 2007. These images include a group picture with the entire team, a shot of the prime minister shaking hands with vice-captain Yuvraj Singh (with Dhoni and pacer Shrikant Wagh present), another of Singh greeting spinner Harbhajan Singh, and one showing him posing with pacer Irfan Pathan.

According to Getty Images, the viral photo of the team with Gandhi was also taken on October 30, 2007. This evidence indicates that both Gandhi, then chairperson of the ruling United Progressive Alliance II (UPA II) and Congress president, and Singh were photographed with the winning team on the same day.

The verdict

On October 30, 2007, then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, along with other dignitaries, met and was photographed with India's T20 Cricket World Cup champions.