Royal Challengers Bangalore registered their first loss in the IPL 2025 after Gujarat Titans cruised to victory inside 18 overs and with 8 wickets in hand. Chasing a modest total of 169/8 put up by RCB, Shubman Gill’s side had no problems whatsoever as opening batter Sai Sudharsan (49), along with Jos Buttler’s brisk 73 off 3,9, meant the visitors at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru could secure an easy win on Wednesday. Mohammed Siraja, a former RCB bowler, was the star performer of the night for the Gujarat Titans as his three-wicket-haul at an impressive economy rate of 4.75 restricted RCB batters from scoring big in front of their home crowd. But their victory came at a price. Hundreds of “irked" Virat Kohli fans flocked to Instagram to give GT’s Arshad a mouthful for picking their star batter’s wicket. There was, however, a slight issue.
The 27-year-old left-arm pacer Arshad Khan took the blockbuster wicket of RCB veteran Virat Kohli in his first over of the contest. Bowling his third delivery of the over, Khan found success when Kohli pulled him towards the deep square leg region. Prasidh Krishna, who was stationed there, completed a routine catch. Kohli departed for 7 in 6 balls, and RCB fans were stumped.
Circuit of Munna Bhai M.B.B.S. Arshad Warsi’s Instagram was swiftly spammed with comments blaming the Bollywood actor for picking up Kohli’s wicket. Yep. Marching to his latest Instagram post with Ajay Devgn, the “angered" fans gave Warsi a piece of their mind.
“Kohli ko out kyun kiya! (Why did you dismiss Kohli?)"
“Ee circuit tu Kohli ka wicket kyu liya re (Circuit, why did you pick up Kohli’s wicket?)"
“Tera Kohli ne kya bigada tha (What did Kohli even do to you?)"
“Yeh lockdown kids yahan bhi aa gaye (These lockdown kids are here too)."
There were nearly 7000 comments like these.
Did the angry mob confuse Gujarat Titans’ bowler Arshad Khan for Bollywood star Arshad Warsi? Or were they there to mock the real trolls in the comments section?
What does one do when Glenn Phillips of New Zealand makes a spectacular catch to dismiss Virat Kohli in the Champions Trophy 2025 clash? Go after the company that makes tube lights and bulbs.
When India locked horns with Australia in the electrifying semi-finals of the recently-concluded Champions Trophy 2025, hordes of cricket fans assembled to thank spinner Varun Chakravarthy for picking the wicket of dangerous Travis Head. They did so by dropping comments of praise onthes Instagram account of Bollywood actors who shares the same name. He was Varun Dhawan. The Badlapur actor played along despite the mistaken identity.
We can’t speak for every commenter who drops a nasty comment while mixing up Instagram accounts, for their emotions (read: hatred) cloud their critical thinking, this act of countering the embarrassing comments left behind by real trolls by actually joining them in the comments section wasn’t a thing in the past.
In 2021, fuming Indian cricket “fans" wanted to teach then-Australian skipper Tim Paine a “lesson" for messing with their team after the famous Gabba win. But they ended up targeting an innocent instead.
This was in response to previous chatter between Aussie captain Paine and Indian bowler Ravichandran Aswhin. A frustrated Paine started the banter, telling Ashwin he couldn’t wait for India to come to the Gabba. Indians mocked Paine and “Come to Gabba", the words uttered by the wicket-keeper batter, came back to haunt the Aussie skipper after India’s famous win in Brisbane.
Trolls, itching to teach Paine a lesson, went all guns blazing on Instagram. Except, they landed on the account of Tim Payne, who was neither an Aussie nor had anything remotely to do with cricket.
Trolls from India attacked Adam Zampa on his Instagram account. The problem? They went after an account who they assumed was the Australian spinner. The incident happened in 2023 when Rohit Sharma’s XI reached a cruel conclusion in the ICC World Cup 2023 campaign,n where Australia handed the hosts a convincing 6-wicket defeat in Ahmedabad.
“Zampa ne gill ko out krke apni aukat dikha di," read one comment.
“Ch***** h kya zampeeee," wrote another.
The account the trolls attacked was that of an Adam Zampa – a ski racer and a pilot from Slovakia.
Wait there’s more. The same match where India lost to Australia in the aching finals of ICC World Cup 2023 found another victim of online attack of hate. New Zealander Jimmy Neesham was promptly abused after the heartbreaking loss of India. But why? Neesham couldn’t understand either.
(Screenshot from Jimmy Neesham’s IG Story)
Neesham couldn’t help but chuckle at the absurdity of the situation. The Kiwi player had to remind the misplaced trolls that Australia and New Zealand were, in fact, not the same.
(Screenshot from Jimmy Neesham’s IG Story)
In another, more recent instance, angered Kohli fans went on a witch-hunt to abuse Railways pacer Himanshu Sangwan after he clean bowled Kohli for 6 runs during Delhi’s Ranji Trophy Elite Group D match at Arun Jaitley Stadium. Several Instagram accounts that shared the same name as the bowler were caught in the crossfire.
