8.2 million unique Facebook users showcase support for their teams during India v Pakistan match

The marquee clash between India and Pakistan generated lot of buzz among fans from both the countries, especially on social media website ‘Facebook’ which saw a colossal number of users creating a rush on the website to keep tabs on the happenings.

Facebook, world’s leading social media site, has over 1.59 billion active users. The site offers various unique features for its users to enhance their social media experience.

Yesterday both the men’s and women’s team of India and Pakistan clashed with each other. The women’s match took place in the afternoon where the Pakistan team beat India by two runs on the basis of Duckworth-Lewis method after rain interrupted the game. The men’s competition, on the other hand, saw an entertaining low-scoring contest were India prevailed over Pakistan riding on the back of Virat Kohli’s match-winning half-century.

Both the matches on 19th March witnessed a staggering 22 million interactions between 8.2 million unique Facebook users showcasing support for their teams. The clash was an highly-anticipated one but still these numbers are astronomical.

The most mentioned cricketers or say the most talked about cricketers were India’s Virat Kohli, Mithali Raj and Pakistan’s Shahid Afridi and Sana Mir.

The cricket fever was visibly at its all time high. Facebook had introduced photo frame which users could apply to their profile pictures to show the support for their respective teams.

Celebrities also showcased the love for their nations and added photo frames to their profile pictures.  Some famous names who did so were Shah Rukh Khan, Priyanka Chopra, Hrithik Roshan, John Abraham, Abhishek Bachchan, Shraddha Kapoor, Allu Arjun, Pritam, Farah Khan, and Pritam.

Pakistani celebs Mariana Iqbal, Shan Maqsood, Maya Ali and Shan Shahid also used Facebook to send messages and support their team. Pakistan’s women team captain Sana Mir also used Facebook to dedicate their win through a video message to all the team members’ parents.

The match was organised extraordinarily with stalwarts like Sachin Tendulkar, Amitabh Bachchan and Abhishek Bachchan attending the match personally. They kept their fans updated with the latest happenings on the ground with pictures taken from the venue.

‘Facebook Live’, a unique feature on Facebook which allows celebrities go live on the website and directly interact with their fans was used to stream the post-match press conferences of both Men’s and Women’s matches. MS Dhoni, Shoaib Malik, Mithali Raj, Sana Mir and Anam Amin all were live using Facebook live.

Bollywood actress Priyanka Chopra Profile picture: