Virat Kohli & Smriti Mandhana: Cricket's Most-Followed Stars With a Combined 287M Instagram Fans
Numbers have always been the currency of the game of cricket — centuries, averages, strike rates, win percentages, you know the deal, all of them. But by 2026 there’s this new kind of scoreboard that doesn’t really care about what happens out on the pitch, instead it’s all about what happens on a screen. Shiva Online Book data shows Virat Kohli as the most followed male cricketer on Instagram, while Smriti Mandhana, the female star, shares the top spot with 287.3 million followers that the two of them possess. If you run that kind of comparison it’s almost like the whole population of Indonesia, which is the fourth most-populous country globally. Two of the top cricketers, one of the most popular platforms, and over half of a whole nation’s population, in one line. This isn't the only thing to heat up the trivia night. The fact that cricket has truly come of age on social media is as testament as any, and hit the ceiling at the top of the social media leaderboard that two v...