From the selfie taken at the revealing of the new kits to the ongoing bromance on social media between Ahmad Shahzad and Shahid Afridi, the Pakistani cricket team has an on-and-off presence on social media. With the World Cup coming up, here’s a run down on the official (mostly verified) social media accounts of players on the squad for Pakistan. Twitter was generally the more common social media platform used by the cricketers. In terms of content, most accounts looked to be managed personally (not run by a marketing manager/team).
Shahid Afridi
This iconic star has been a part of the Pakistan team for the past 19 years! One of the most well-known cricketers around the world, Shahid Afridi has a sizeable presence on social media. On Facebook, his official page has 222K likes and his account on Twitter has 332K followers. The twitter account seems to be the more active one with both personal messages as well as photos with other celebrities and the team. Here’s a link to his foundation’s Facebook account.
Ahmad Shahzad
The young opener who holds the record scoring the first century in a T20I by a Pakistani batsmen is an active Twitter user with 319K followers. In one of his tweets in January 2015, he announced that he does not yet have an official Facebook account, but will be bringing one soon for his fans. He tweets behind-the-scene photos of the Pakistani cricket team training and practicing as well as personal thoughts and messages to his fans.
Mohammad Hafeez
A veteran in the current World Cup squad and the captain of the T20 team, Mohammad Hafeez also has his official social media account on Twitter. He does not tweet that frequently (a total of 539 tweets but has amassed 152K followers. Recent tweets are pictures of himself or the Pakistani team – the content seems to be posted personally by him.
Younis Khan
There is an account on twitter that claims to be and feels like a personal account – it has a total of 137 tweets (mostly retweeting Shahid Afridi) and some photos of training and travelling. The account has around 6.5K followers.
Haris Sohail
The recent entrant to the team has an official account on Facebook. The page has about 5K likes and posts are still images of Haris Sohail playing international cricket matches as well as photos of him and other team members travelling, at events and training.
Umar Akmal
The talented batsman who never seems to find the right place in the batting order and is also a part-time keeper for the team has his official account on Twitter. With a total of 231 tweets, he has 131K followers. Tweets are personal photos with family and friends as well as photos from cricket matches – a lot of them are actually self-portraits or selfies of the star at different locations.
Not playing in the World Cup (but considered in the 30-man squad)
Fawad Alam
Even though he didn’t (unfortunately) make the cut this year, he is definitely one of the promising youngsters playing cricket for the international team. His personal looking Twitter account (lots of personal photos) has 22K fans and he tweets lots of selfies.
Shoaib Malik
The ex-captain of the Pakistani cricket team, also of marrying Sania Mirza fame, has 270K followers on his official Twitter account – he tweets mostly about cricket and travelling.
Pakistani cricket players without verified official social media accounts on Facebook and Twitter:
Misbah-ul-Haq, Sarfaraz Ahmad, Younis Khan, Sohaib Maqsood, Yasir Shah, Mohammad Irfan, Junaid Khan, Ehsan Adil and Wahab Riaz.
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