New Chandigarh: Did Rishabh Pant strike down a drone in Mullanpur, a la Iranian and Israeli army personnel in the West Asia conflict?
A video has gone viral showing Team India’s wicketkeeper-batter smashing a ball high into the air and hitting a drone during the one-off Test against Afghanistan at Mullanpur stadium in New Chandigarh.
As Pant lofts Afghan captain Hashmatullah Shahidi, the commentator is heard exclaiming, “he’s absolutely smashed it, but hold on there’s a drone in the air.. oh my goodness, the ball has hit the drone.. both are coming down.”
The video clip shows the drone and the ball landing close to each other on the ground.
The footage is from the television coverage of the Test, and the action is from Day 1 of the Test match.
It’s the fourth ball of the 74th over, as the score is flashed on the screen, with skipper Shubman Gill on 80 and Pant on 28.
But there’s a catch. Take a closer look, and you will know that it’s a manufactured video, which has gone viral on X:
Ball hits Drone 😱 and Crashed #INDvsAFG Test Match
Art – Drone
Artist – Rishabh Pant pic.twitter.com/W3jBzFOXS7— Arattai Darbar🔥🧊 (@Arattai_darbar) June 7, 2026
Did you notice?
It’s a white ball that Pant is seen hitting, which brings down the drone.
Any cricket follower would know that white balls are used in ODIs and T20 Internationals.
For Test matches, it’s the traditional red ball, or occasionally the pink ball.
On checking with the scorecard of the match, Pant actually inside-edged that particular delivery – fourth ball of the 74th over – towards square leg. There was no lofted shot played to that ball delivered by Hashmat to left-handed Pant.
Some smart techie must have tweaked the official footage with AI to bring in the white ball and changed the shot as well.
He managed to deceive quite a few netizens, who thought it was a genuine clip. But a few caught on, some saying that Grok helped in producing the ball-hitting-drone effect.
Check out the clip which has gone viral on X.
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