PM compares cricket match to Op Sindoor, social media wonders if it’s a parody account

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s congratulatory message for Team India’s Asia Cup triumph on Sunday night was meant to be patriotic, but it quickly turned into meme material.

Celebrating India’s five-wicket win over Pakistan in the Dubai final, Modi posted on X: “Operation Sindoor on the games field. Outcome is the same - India wins! Congrats to our cricketers.”

That one phrase — “Operation Sindoor” — had social media in splits. For context, India had named its military response to the Pahalgam terror attack “Operation Sindoor.” Juxtaposing it with a cricket match was enough to get people wondering whether the tweet came from the Prime Minister’s official account or a particularly committed parody handle.

Soon, timelines filled with incredulous reactions, kadi ninda, and of course, Trump memes.

“Equating a cricket win with #OperationSindoor, where our soldiers laid down their lives, is deeply disrespectful. This isn’t just insensitivity, it’s reducing supreme sacrifice of soldiers to a political slogan,” wrote one Ashish Gupta.

“What a mindless statement, more worthy of a garden variety troll than a Prime Minister of India,” wrote The Wire’s founding editor Siddharth Varadarajan.

“I even cross-checked thinking it was a parody account, but it’s actually an official handle. It just shows how low one can stoop. Shame!” wrote Congress MP and former bureaucrat Sasikanth Senthil.

“PM Modi compares a deadly conflict where both armed forces and civilians were killed... to a cricket match,” wrote The Hindu’s diplomatic affairs editor Suhasini Haidar.

Meanwhile, President Droupadi Murmu kept her cricket felicitation free of military metaphors, praising Team India for its unbeaten run in the tournament and wishing them “sustained glory.”

On the field, India’s win was anchored by a dramatic bowling collapse inflicted on Pakistan: from 113/1 in the 13th over to 146 all out. Kuldeep Yadav starred with a four-wicket burst, backed by Axar Patel, Varun Chakaravarthy, and Jasprit Bumrah.

But online, the win was overshadowed by the PM’s wordplay. Critics pointed out that the government and BCCI were already facing flak for allowing India to play Pakistan in cricket while boycotting them diplomatically. Some MPs had even demanded a pull-out from bilateral and multilateral tournaments after the Pahalgam attack.

Recent matches between India and Pakistan have compelled sections of the mainstream media to reignite their scrutiny of the opposition. But can India pull out of multilateral tournaments? Read this to understand.

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