Dhoni pushes down Kohli on popularity chart

Mahendra Singh Dhoni is THE MAN to top popularity scales. Virat Kohli comes later. So! Don’t make a mistake to write of Dhoni. Till the time he himself decides to slip into oblivion.

That is the crux of social media trending in IPL 10. Dhoni is the most talked about, most searched name. Virat Kohli comes second. The two biggest brand icons of Indian cricket collectively relegate all others to lower positions.

MS Dhoni, Mumbai Indians and KKRvRCB were among the top three searches on Twitter in the IPL 2017. Dhoni bettered Virat Kohli in the most-searched list

The former India and Rising Pune Supergiant captain Dhoni — recently nicknamed Baahubali on social media by RPS fans — was the most tweeted about player of the group stages of the IPL.

Dhoni’s Rising Pune Supergiant teammates Ben Stokes and current captain Steve Smith were also on the list of top 10 most tweeted player emojis during the IPL group stage. Six on the top ten list are Indian icons.

However, Kohli, in spite of his overall disastrous run in the IPL, remain in the fans XI picked by twitterati. Interestingly enough, the old guard getting weightage over the young brigade.

Of the 56 matches in the group stage, the Kolkata Knight Riders versus Royal Challengers Bangalore match at Eden Gardens on April 23 was the most tweeted about. Kolkata Knight Riders had won the match by 82 runs.

Toppers of the group standings Mumbai Indians were the most tweeted about team in the week preceding the play-off round.

Dhoni lets his deeds speak. To silence his critics. The might of Dhoni willow forced that, too. His Pune franchisee team owner’s brother Harsh Goenka, who was in news for ridiculing Mahi on twitter, ended up to be a Mahi on the same social media platform. Harsh Goenka not only did appreciate MS Dhoni’s knock but gave standing ovation to the blistering innings of 40 not out off 26 balls.

“Explosive batting by Dhoni, deceitful bowling by Sundar and great captaincy by Smith takes #RPS to the #IPL finals,” Goenka wrote on Twitter.

Explosive batting by Dhoni, deceitful bowling by Sundar and great captaincy by Smith takes #RPS to the #IPL finals. pic.twitter.com/TFCZfC0YrH

— Harsh Goenka (@hvgoenka) May 16, 2017

This was in sharp contrast to what Harsh Goenka had to say about Dhoni earlier, when he had some rather uncharitable stuff to shell out about the star cricketer, which led to former also being trolled massively.