Virat Kohli becomes first Indian sportsperson to reach 8 million Twitter followers

On Sunday night, Kohli became the first Indian sportsperson to have 8 million twitter followers. The next most popular Indian sports star on twitter is cricket icon Sachin Tendulkar with 7.73 million followers.

The current India Test captain marked the occasion of beating a Sachin record by thanking his fans and tweeting this picture:

Kohli could soon go past tennis superstar Rafael Nadal who has 8.44 million twitter followers, and is already ahead of Roger Federer’s social media following.

Kohli also has a huge fan base on Facebook with over 22 million people liking his page. He joined Instagram recently and already has close to 200,000 followers.

After a troubled start to his reign as captain, Kohli seems to have found new followers, on the social media and otherwise, after a first series win in Sri Lanka after 22 years.

Most followed Indian sportspersons:

Most followed sportsmen in the world:

8 Million Followers! Absolutely Delighted. Thank You everyone for the immense love! #Grateful pic.twitter.com/9p2xn9fc7J

— Virat Kohli (@imVkohli) September 6, 2015

Twitter followers million 8.01 VKohli 7.73 SRT 4.66 Raina 4.52 MS Dhoni 4.42 VSehwag 3.40 Yuvraj singh 2.65 Rohit Sharma 2.37 Zaheer Khan

— Mohandas Menon (@mohanstatsman) September 7, 2015

Sportsmen Twitter followers million 37.7 C Ronaldo 23.6 LeBron James 23.4 Kaka 19.6 NeymarJr 12.6 Ronaldinho 11.8 WRooney 11.7 KevinDurant

— Mohandas Menon (@mohanstatsman) September 7, 2015