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'Kohli Right Up There With Messi & CR7': Kiwi Great's Highest Praise For India's Ace Batter

Taylor compares Kohli with Messi, CR7 (x.com)Taylor compares Kohli with Messi, CR7 (x.com)

The ex-New Zealand captain, Ross Taylor recently talked about how social media and brand endorsements have changed how athletes are seen all over the world and has also compared the popularity of Virat Kohli to the likes of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.

In the recently released episode of the 180 Not Out podcast, Taylor opened up about how the game has changed since 2008 due to social media and how players keep promoting different brands through their posts, correlating Virat's brand value to the footballers.


"Players are putting out posts and endorsing brands, who would've thought that in 2008? Someone like Kohli who is a world superstar in cricket but is a global superstar on social media, is up there with Messi and Cristiano. Everyone is under a microscope now because of social media," said the 40-year-old.

As mentioned by Taylor, Virat is the third most followed athlete on Instagram with 269M followers, just behind Cristiano [630M] and Messi [503M]. He also overshadows the likes of Neymar Jr. [221M] and basketball superstar LeBron James [159M].

A similar trend can be seen with other platforms as well, he still stands third behind the two footballing greats in terms of combined following on social media for athletes.