Sri Lankan Coach Sanath Jayasuriya Praying to God During a Cricket Match?

Ever since former legend Sanath Jayasuriya took the reins as the coach of the Sri Lankan national cricket team, social media users have responded with mixed reactions. Especially during the 3-match T20 series against England, just before the currently ongoing T20 World Cup, garnered a lot of criticism.

Social Media Claims:

A photo featuring media of Sanath Jayasuriya purportedly praying for divine interventions during one of the matches went viral on social media, with the caption “Picture of the day”.

The photo was uploaded on February 02, 2026, the day after Sri Lanka suffered a loss to England in the 2nd T20 match, as seen below.

Facebook | Archived Link

Similar posts went viral in Sinhala and Tamil with similar narratives. Tamil posts even attributed the image to a scene during Sri Lanka’s first World Cup match against Ireland, which the host nation eventually won after a few tense phases.

As many people were curious about this information, we decided to dig deeper.

Fact Check:

We closely watched the full match of the Sri Lanka vs England 2nd T20 international on the 1^st of February and noticed an interesting moment in the second innings. In the 13th over, bowled by Matheesha Pathirana, he picked up a crucial wicket of England captain Harry Brook, after a quick-fire innings. Right after that dismissal, the camera showed Sri Lanka coach Sanath Jayasuriya looking visibly tense yet also relieved after Brook’s dismissal.

While the scene resembled the viral image on social media, Sanath was not raising his hand in a manner that he was worshipping the gods for the wicket, yet at the same time his expressions showed a sense of relief. Below is a comparison between the viral image and the actual image from the live footage from the match.

We noticed that although the security guard standing behind Sanath Jayasuriya isn’t visible in the viral photo circulating on social media, the antenna of the walkie-talkie he was carrying can still be seen peeking out behind the chair where Jayasuriya was seated.

So, when we tested the viral image with AI detection tools, it was found to be manipulated using artificial intelligence with a high probability.

We checked this further using Google Gemini, which also indicated a high likelihood of the image being generated using Google’s AI tools.

Sri Lanka at the T20 World Cup 2026

Despite the setback against England just before the World Cup, the Sri Lankan cricket team has managed to string together some strong performance including beating the mighty Australian team and has progressed to the next stage of the tournament, the Super 8’s.

Sri Lanka will start their campaign against England on 22 February at the Pallekele International Cricket Stadium in Kandy, the very ground where the above scenes transpired, just 3 weeks ago.

Join us to learn about our fact-checking investigations.

Conclusion:

Therefore, based on our investigation, we found that the image being shared online, claiming to show Sanath Jayasuriya praying for a win by the England cricket team, was created using artificial intelligence (AI). However, the actual image also showed Sanath in a tense expression, with a sense of relief, after the wicket of English captain Harry Brook’s wicket, during their 2^nd T20 match against England in early February.