Indian skipper Virat Kohli has added another feather to his illustrious cap. He has become the first cricketer and first Asian celebrity to hit 100 million followers on Instagram. The cricketer has joined Juventus striker Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar, Argentine forward Lionel Messi, Hollywood actor and former pro-wrestler Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson, American singer-songwriter Beyonce, and Ariana Grande in the 100 million club.
Kohli is also the fourth most followed sportsperson on Instagram. Portugal football star Cristiano Ronaldo currently tops the chart with 265 million followers, ahead of Argentina football captain and FC Barcelona legend Lionel Messi and Brazil’s Neymar, who are second and third in the list with 186 million and 147 million followers, respectively.
The International Cricket Council (ICC) took to Twitter to share the news saying, “Virat Kohli – the first cricket star to hit 100 million followers on Instagram.” Instagram is not the only platform where the right-handed batsman is followed the most, he has 40.8 million followers on Twitter and over 36 million likes on Facebook.
Kohli, who holds the top spot in ICC’s ODI batting rankings, made his debut in the format in August 2008. The Indian skipper has scored 12,040 runs in 251 ODIs at an average of 59.31. Kohli was recently ranked as the most valuable celebrity for the fourth consecutive year in 2020 with a brand value of $237.7 million. According to the Celebrity Brand Valuation Study 2020 by Duff & Phelps, the skipper has upstaged Bollywood stars Akshay Kumar and Ranveer Singh to retain the top spot in India’s most-valuable celeb list.
Meanwhile fans are flooding Virat’s social media handles with congratulatory messages. Here are some of them.
