Virat Kohli becomes first Indian with 200 million followers on Instagram
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Virat Kohli
Former India captain Virat Kohli reached a milestone not because of his runs but because of the number of followers he has on Instagram. He became the first Indian with 200 million followers on the social media platform, also the most followed Indian there.
He has over 49 million followers on Facebook and 48 million followers on Twitter. Kohli had also scripted history when he became the first Asian to have 150 million followers on Instagram.
When Kohli reached this feat, he shared with the fans a video expressing his gratitude. He thanked his fans for their support with the caption: “200 mil strong Thanks for all your support insta fam.”
Also, he surpassed Brazil superstar Neymar to become the third most followed sportsperson on Facebook. In the list of active athletes with over 200 million followers on Instagram, Virat Kohli is only behind Manchester United striker Christiano Ronaldo and Paris Saint Germain (PSG) and Argentina star Lionel Messi. See the list below of most followed active athletes on Instagram.
Christiano Ronaldo- 451 million
Lionel Messi- 334 million
Virat Kohli- 200 million
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“Players had told me, there is agression…”- Mohammad Rizwan recalls first meeting with Virat Kohli
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During India’s match against Pakistan at the 2021 T20 World Cup, Mohammad Rizwan’s unbeaten 79 helped Pakistan beat India by 10 wickets. After the match, the then India captain Virat Kohli walked up to Rizwan and talked to him. Although Rizwan has never revealed what was said to him, it was in a recent interview that the 30-year-old described his first meeting with the Indian legend.
“It was the first time I was meeting Kohli. The things I had heard about him…other players had told me he is… there is aggression on the ground and things like that. But the way he met me before and after the match….I say we are a family. All of us cricketers are one family. If I said ‘our Virat Kohli’, then I don’t think it will be wrong. Obviously, when we enter the ground, our priority is our star (points at the Pakistan cricket team’s emblem). We have to play for it. There we have no brotherhood or anything of that sort. But outside the field, when we met Kohli, and some of our players also met MS Dhoni, we met with a lot of love and affection. Nothing was different,” Rizwan said on the YouTube show Cricket Baaz with Waheed Khan.
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Gouri Das
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