Joins network late on tuesday, gains followers in thousands by the minute.
It’s not like he needed any more jaw-dropping statistics to prop up his legend but when you’re Sachin Tendulkar, can big numbers be far behind?
It took him over 20 years to rack up 17,598 runs in 442 one-dayers, 13,447 in 166 Test matches, 92 international tons and 147 international half-centuries; it took him just over 20 hours to collect over 85,000 followers (and counting very fast) on social networking site Twitter.
He walked into the cricketing world’s collective consciousness as a nervous (by his own admission) 16-year-old in Karachi, but Wednesday’s Twitter debut was far more confident: “Finally the original SRT is on twitter n the first thing I’d like to do is wish my colleagues the best in the windies”.
From that point on, through the day, the tag on the right side of his Twitter page tracking how many people were following him resembled a super-charged ticker tape: 6.00pm: 53,291 followers; 6.30pm: 55,263; 7.00pm: 56,863… by the time this paper went to print, at midnight, the figure had reached an immense 85,324.
His tweets included information on a new Vinod Chopra production (Ferrari ki Sawaari), updates on his injury (“got stitches removed… will keep you posted on this”) and, perhaps, the reason he was on the website in the first place (“My kids r happy that I m finally on twitter.They hv been tryin 2 get me 2 join twitter or facebook for ages”).
The welcome he got to the tweeting world was generous. A fan, inspired by Jawaharlal Nehru, wrote: “At the stroke of the midnight when most Indians were sleeping, Sachin joined Twitter”. Photographer friend Atul Kasbekar was quick on the buzzer: “Ladies n Gentlemen it is my proud privilege to introduce Finally to Twitter, SACHIN TENDULKAR… follow the King now, go go go!!!”
Bollywood actor Shilpa Shetty followed: “Finally on twitter, The God of cricket himself. A big welcome shout for SACHIN TENDULKAR himself… spread the word”.
“Good to see you here,” wrote Sania Mirza, while Deepika Padukone attempted to set in motion a charge for another Tendulkar record: “The only record left for him 2 break is max number of followers:-)”. Hollywood star Ashton Kutcher, who famously beat ‘CNN Breaking News’ in a race to 1,000,000 followers more than a year ago, currently leads the way with 4,850,350.
And while that may seem a long way off, how many would’ve predicted the numbers when a 16-year-old nervously walked to the middle in Karachi more than 20 years ago?
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