A crazy anecdote that went viral as part of a match from the 2026 IPL, tying the beating of Chennai Super Kings to 'black magic' by a fan of the Sunrisers Hyderabad franchise. But a closer look shows these are all false claims that have no basis in science or reality.
Sunrisers Hyderabad won the third of their season, defending a competitive total of 195 runs in the 27th game. Despite achieving the target but still missed, Chennai Super Kings were down to the fourth team of the league. SRH had stormed up the points table after the impressive win, placing themselves as fourth in that chart and securing their season to date.
An accompanying video widely circulated on social media in the post-match conversation. As a result, in the video, the fan who wore an SRH jersey presumably engaged in ritualisation with the lemon as CSK was batting. Within minutes, CSK batter Shivam Dube was dismissed, and some users said the fan’s “black magic” led to the wicket.
Although this video does depict the fan wielding a lemon and appearing to chant towards something, you don’t have much to say that it really did anything to the game. The incident has received a shrug-off from cricket experts and rational witnesses. While the split seconds when the fan is moving, and the wicket is delivered can sound sensational, it is not unusual in fast-moving sports like cricket.
Adding to the gossip, there was a separate online rumour that the Chennai Super Kings had lodged an official complaint with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) regarding the incident. Other replicas on Twitter also went viral, lending credibility to the complaint.
What on earth happened to CSK..? 😹😹😹😹
— 🔱🚩YATNAL HINDU SENE 🚩🔱 (@yathnalabhimani) April 19, 2026
Black magic claims, viral ‘official’ notices… but is any of this even real…?
No credible confirmation, no official statement looks more like a well-crafted fake than a genuine complaint.
And meanwhile, one guy with a single lemon… pic.twitter.com/sov0kRXAY7
But neither CSK nor BCCI said anything like this complaint had ever been made, either. Sources here would say this viral document is fake, and it’s hard to picture a professional franchise like CSK bringing a complaint. The episode also reveals the growing hazard of disinformation on social media, where linked or coincidental phenomena become inflated and reduced to facts.
The superstitious perceptions of sporting results can mask what is really going on when it comes to determining outcomes – whether that be player performance, the strategy or the setting. The Chennai Super Kings are defeated for on-the-field reasons, not for some otherworldly god somewhere, or because of some external factor.
The same can be said for Sunrisers Hyderabad’s victory this time: with just-right gameplay and planning, they had won as well. Millions of fans flock to the IPL while making sure to realise that the fans must be patient, so they do not go viral and always make references to the sources of the correct information.
So lies and unfounded notions mislabel users as well as harm the sport. This makes it clear that the so-called “black magic” incident of the SRH vs CSK match is not real at all. So it’s nothing more than an accidental stroke of genius driven by speculation on social media, no fact or formal support pointed to any way out.
