Virat Kohli, Sachin Tendulkar...cricketers lost their Blue Ticks overnight

The internet got flooded with memes on Friday over several Indian celebrities, including sporting stars losing out on their verification marks on Twitter.

New Delhi: Amid Twitter changing its policy on legacy Twitter handles, Indian stars from the world of cricket lost ticks overnight. Sachin Tendulkar, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Sourav Ganguly, MS Dhoni are some of the prominent sporting stars who have chosen not to pay the social media giant and have in turn lost out on their verification tags.

Virat fans went gaga over Twitter with some posting memes on how to spot the actual Virat Kohli account. One of the Twitter users posted a photo of many morphed Virat Kohli figures in red hoodie where he seems to be searching for someone. He wrote the caption, "Me looking for original Virat Kohli account on Twitter after they removed legacy Blue tick from his account."

• Me looking for original Virat Kohli account on Twitter after they removed legacy Blue tick from his account. pic.twitter.com/2R0IPYpTzV

  — EngiNerd. (@mainbhiengineer) April 20, 2023 " class="align-text-top noRightClick twitterSection" data="

  Me looking for original Virat Kohli account on Twitter after they removed legacy Blue tick from his account. pic.twitter.com/2R0IPYpTzV

  — EngiNerd. (@mainbhiengineer) April 20, 2023

  ">

  Me looking for original Virat Kohli account on Twitter after they removed legacy Blue tick from his account. pic.twitter.com/2R0IPYpTzV

  — EngiNerd. (@mainbhiengineer) April 20, 2023

One of the memes also featured a collage of Rohit Sharma with two pictures- one, where he sports sunglasses and his tongue out and the other in which he is is sitting on the ground covering his head. While the first picture has the caption "Rohit Sharma with Blue tick" the other one has the caption "Rohit Sharma without Blue tick".

• Rohit Sharma with
  Blue tick. Rohit Sharma without blue tick pic.twitter.com/TrzzZuyM0I

  — 𝗺 𝗮 𝗵 𝗲 𝘀 𝗵 ❤️ (@suprVK) April 21, 2023 " class="align-text-top noRightClick twitterSection" data="

  Rohit Sharma with
  Blue tick. Rohit Sharma without blue tick pic.twitter.com/TrzzZuyM0I

  — 𝗺 𝗮 𝗵 𝗲 𝘀 𝗵 ❤️ (@suprVK) April 21, 2023

  ">

  Rohit Sharma with
  Blue tick. Rohit Sharma without blue tick pic.twitter.com/TrzzZuyM0I

  — 𝗺 𝗮 𝗵 𝗲 𝘀 𝗵 ❤️ (@suprVK) April 21, 2023

Apart from these men in blue, Sania Nehwal and Sania Mirza have also lost their Twitter verification. As per the new Twitter rules only individual Twitter users who are paying for Twitter Blue will stand verified. The Blue Tick service costs USD 8/month via the web and USD 11/month through the in-app payment on iOS and Android.

The microblogging site has announced a skew of measures in a bid to improve its services and remove fake accounts and bots ever since Elon Musk took over as its new chief. Verification tags allow celebrities to stand distinguished and also help their followers to make out the real account from the fake ones.