Unsourced posts claim that Sanju Samson, an Indian cricket player, will represent Ireland. This post alleges that Sanju Samson, an Indian Cricket Board player, was not offered enough opportunities to represent India at the international level. It also claims that Sanju Samson was offered the position of Ireland Cricket captain by the Ireland Cricket Board. Let’s examine the claims made in this post.
Claim – Sanju Samson, a former Indian cricketer, is now heading the Ireland Cricket team.
Fact: Recently, several mainstream and sports news websites published articles reporting that Sanju Samson was offered the opportunity to represent Ireland’s cricket team by Ireland Cricket. These news reports also stated that Sanju Samson politely declined the offer, saying that he wanted to represent India and that he could not imagine playing for another country at the international level. The Ireland Cricket Board denied any offer to Sanju Samson and referred to the news reports as “complete rubbish.” The claim in the post is FALSE.
We found out that many mainstreams and sports news sites have published reports that Sanju Samson was offered by the Ireland Cricket team to be their representative in all matches. Here and here are just a few examples of these news reports. These news reports also stated that Sanju Samson denied the offer, saying that he wanted to represent India and couldn’t imagine playing for another country at the international level.
However, neither the Ireland Cricket Board nor Sanju Samson could find such an announcement. We couldn’t find any announcement from Sanju Samson on their official social media accounts. The Ireland Cricket Board replied to Factly’s email asking for clarification on these news reports. It is not known where it came from. Sanju Samson was not offered any similar offer by the Ireland Cricket Board.
Some sports websites also published tweets as well as articles, clarifying that Sanju Samson had not been offered the Ireland Cricket Board’s leadership position in their cricket team.
Summarising, Sanju Samson was not offered a place on the Ireland Cricket Board’s cricket team.