According to the latest study by SEMrush, former India captain MS Dhoni and current captain Virat Kohli were the most searched cricketers globally from December 2015 to December 2019. According to the survey, Kohli belongs to the top in the most searched list with an average of 1.76 million queries every month.
After Kohli, it was none other than veteran wicketkeeper-batsman MS Dhoni who has an average of 9.59 lakh searches every month. However, others are no far behind as the duo of Kohli and Dhoni are followed by dashing India opener Rohit Sharma (7.33 lakh), batting maestro Sachin Tendulkar (4.51 lakh), all-rounder Hardik Pandya (3.68 lakh) and former India all-rounder Yuvraj Singh (3.48 lakh) in the search list.
The recent study has also tracked the number of times of cricketers and cricket teams that were searched globally as well and the Data from the SEMrush research are from December 2015 to December 2019. This also analysed data from global searches gave credence to players ranked among the top ten who were popular globally and not only in India.
Although there is a huge chance to believe that most global searches for cricketers have come from Indians who are living in the Indian subcontinent and abroad as well. Surprisingly, besides three players – Steve Smith, AB de Villiers, and Chris Gayle, all other players among the top ten were Indian players. Hence, the majority of those searching are related to Indians or have some ties to India.
Cricket is the most popular sport in India and globally searches for the England cricket team exceeded those for the Indian cricket team. The former was searched an average of 3.51 lakh times whereas the latter has an average of 3.09 lakh times. Both teams are among the two most searched teams across the globe.
Afghanistan, Ireland and Zimbabwe were also searched at an average of merely fifteen thousand, seven thousand, and five thousand times respectively as well. According to the SEMrush study the West Indies, Pakistan, Australia, Bangladesh, South Africa, New Zealand, and Sri Lankan teams placed at third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh respectively.
