South African Cricketers Get Tongue-Tied Over 'Thiruvananthapuram', Shashi Tharoor Shares Video

The South African cricket team has landed in India and is currently in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, gearing up for the ODI World Cup 2023. A warm-up match against New Zealand is scheduled for Monday.

Interestingly, a video capturing some of the players struggling to pronounce the city's name has gone viral on various social media platforms. Notably, it was shared by none other than Shashi Tharoor.

Tharoor posted the now-viral video on X (formerly Twitter). In the footage, most of the players appeared to have difficulty correctly pronouncing the city's name. Surprisingly, Lungi Ngidi, Keshav Maharaj, and Kagiso Rabada were the only ones who got it right.

Heinrich Klassen, on the other hand, couldn't quite manage it and resorted to using the city's old name - Trivandrum. Responding to this, the Member of Parliament for Thiruvananthapuram quipped, "The South Africans have arrived in Thiruvananthapuram! But can they tell anyone where they are?"

"Trivandrum is the anglicized version of Thiruvananthapuram, just like they changed Cawnpore to Kanpur, Calcutta to Kolkata, etc., because they couldn't pronounce these names," one user explained.

Another user humorously added, "Even we can't pronounce that."

In a related development, the Kerala Assembly passed a resolution in August to rename the state as "Keralam."