Claim: Babar Azam announced his retirement from international cricket.
Fact: The claim is false. Azam has not announced his retirement from international cricket.
On 26 February 2025, a post on Facebook shared a picture of former captain of the Pakistan cricket team Babar Azam, with embedded captions claiming he had retired from international cricket. The first embedded caption read in Urdu:
بریکنگ نیوز”
“قومی ٹیم کے سابقہ کپتان بابر اعظم نے انٹرنشنل کرکٹ سے ریٹائرمنٹ کا اعلان کر دیا ہے۔ فین کے ساتھ لیگ کرکٹ تک محدود رہے گے
According to Google Translate, this reads in English as follows:
“Breaking news
Former national team captain Babar Azam has announced his retirement from international cricket. Will continue playing League Cricket for the fans”
The second embedded caption is from a picture that allegedly shows a post on X (formerly Twitter) by Babar Azam. His name is accompanied with the verified blue tick, and the post reads:
“I have decided to retire from international cricket”
This claim circulated in the wake of the Pakistan cricket team being eliminated from the Champions Trophy 2025 in the group stage. The team suffered back-to-back losses against New Zealand and India, and it was unable to qualify for the semi-finals. Cricket experts criticised the team for their lacklustre performance with former Pakistani international cricketer Shoaib Akhtar, renowned as the fastest bowler in cricket history, specifically slamming Azam’s performance in the championship and calling him a “fraud”.
Fact or Fiction?
To see if this claim was true, Soch Fact Check thoroughly checked Azam’s X account for posts claiming that he had retired from international cricket. However, no such post was found. The post in the claim is dated 26 February 2025, but Azam has not posted on his X account since 10 February 2025.
Azam’s Facebook and Instagram accounts also did not show any post that claimed he had retired from international cricket. The latest posts on both these accounts are also dated 10 February 2025.
Moreover, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) still lists Azam as a centrally contracted player in Category A for the year 2024–25.
Conducting a Google search for “Babar Azam retirement” did not yield any results that corroborated the claim either. However, a recent fact-check on this claim by IFCN signatory NewsMobile rated the claim as false.
Virality
On Facebook, the claim was shared here, here, and here.
On X, the claim was shared here, here, and here.
On TikTok, the claim was shared here and here.
On Instagram, the claim was shared here.
Conclusion: The claim is false. Babar Azam has not retired from international cricket and is still a player for the Pakistan cricket team.
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Background image in cover photo: ICC Champions Trophy 2025
