Kolkata, April 11: With nine teams battling it out in the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL), 'Twitter', one of the most popular social networking sites, has become an off-the-field war zone for IPL fans.
Termed as 'Twitter Battle' the online poll based on questions about the teams, is a rage among the twitterati.
To start off, Twitter comes up with the Team HashTag Battle, where there are 'hashtags' for both teams, (e.g. #RCB, #MI) on the live 'Match Centre'.
Supporters have a chance to show their support by hashtagging their favourite teams and keeping it ahead in terms of popularity and make it a poll winner.
"I always vote for the Kolkata Knight Riders in the Twitter online poll," a student and a KKR supporter, Proteek Banerjee, told IANS.
Then there is the 'Live Tweet Counter' which keeps count of the tweets that have any relation with the IPL matches.
Lastly, there's a 'Loyalty Corner', where the fans and supporters can show their support for a team, by selecting their team, and then by hitting the 'TWEET' button.
On the IPL website, Twitter features the Tweet Counter and Team Hashtag battle.
These have also been included into the television medium, to heighten the frenzy. These features will be shown in TV during the live telecast of the matches.
Tweets from fans and celebrities have been pouring in from all over the world, with commentators reading out the best of them during the matches.
"To all my twitter family I hope everyone have a good day. Am home waiting for the IPL cricket to start," tweeted Yohan Blake, the famous Jamaican sprinter on the day the league started.
With the tweet counter already showing more than two million tweets, it's time for cricket buffs to buck up and beat other opponents off the field, if not on it.
