A photo showing women basketball players of different heights donning red and blue jerseys standing in rows of two is gathering a lot of traction on social media. The group in the blue jerseys is much shorter than the ones sporting the red jerseys. Some portions of the blue jerseys have been blurred out while the red jersey reads ‘USA’. Users are sharing the image and claiming that these players are from the Under-16 division representing the United States and India.

Facebook page ‘Aly memes‘ posted the picture with the same claim.

Another Facebook user also posted the image with the accompanying claim.

The image is widespread on Facebook.

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Fact-check

Through a simple reverse image search, Alt News located the original photo in a Sports Ration article dated June 19, 2019. Here, ‘El Salvador’ is printed on the blue jerseys. El Salvador is a country in Central America. The report states that a basketball match was held between the United States and El Salvador, which the former won with a score of 114-19. The image carried by this outlet shows El Salvador written in the front of the blue jerseys, which has been blurred out in the viral photo.

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A website named El Salvador Day also shared this picture while reporting on the match.

Sports website AS USA tweeted this picture on June 18, 2019.

To sum it up, a picture of the Under-16 womens’ basketball teams of the United States and El Salvador was falsely shared as the USA and India.

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About the Author

Kinjal Parmar holds a Bachelor of Science in Microbiology. However, her keen interest in journalism, drove her to pursue journalism from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication. At Alt News since 2019, she focuses on authentication of information which includes visual verification, media misreports, examining mis/disinformation across social media. She is the lead video producer at Alt News and manages social media accounts for the organization.