2015 in review: Indian cricketers lead the hashtag brigade

                                          
NEW DELHI: That cricket is an obsession in this country is a no-brainer. In a World Cup year like 2015, this obsession hit a crescendo, especially since India were the defending champions when they went Down Under for the quadrennial tournament in February-March.

'#WeWon'tGiveItBack' became a mantra for the youth in this country as MS Dhoni and his band of merry men began the quest to defend their crown. Their campaign kicked off with a blockbuster encounter against Pakistan in Adelaide - ironically a day after Valentine's Day - with no love lost between the two sides.

It's no surprise that this clash of neighbours became the most talked-about or 'tweeted-about' event of the year with a whopping 118.3 million views over the course of the match, which India won comfortably by 76 runs.
The match threw up some astonishing numbers - 9,987 tweets per minute when India completed the victory, 7,159 tweets per minute when Virat Kohli completed his century off 119 balls and 6,916 tweets per minute when Sohail Khan sent back Kohli on 107.

#IndiavsPak was significantly ahead of other major events in this country like #DelhiElections in February, #HappyDiwali and #ChennaiRains earlier this month.

Although India failed to bring back the Cup from Australia, it had no effect on the popularity of the sport in this country. Overall, #CWC15 generated over 1.4 billion live impressions (tweets posted and viewed during each match) through the six weeks of the tournament. Indian Test skipper Kohli continues to be most-followed sports personality in this country with 8,740,519 followers at the last count, while Sachin Tendulkar comes in second with 8,728,047 followers. Kohli was also the 'most searched' athlete on Google in this country ahead of the Argentinian genius Lionel Messi, Tendulkar and ODI & T20 skipper MS Dhoni.

The next rage on social media was of course #IPL with over 9 million tweets recorded this season. There were over 375.4 million views of #IPL-related tweets during Season 8's live matches.