Angry over Sachin's tweet, Malayalis apologise to Sharapova for cyber bullying her

Thiruvananthapuram: Angered over Sachin Tendulkar's tweet on farmers protest, scores of Keralites flooded tennis star Maria Sharpova's social media pages with messages, apologising for taking on her in 2015 after she had in an interview pleaded ignorance about the cricket icon.

While most messages were apologetic about their previous comments critical of her and lashed out at Tendulkar, a few even invited the Russian to come to God's Own Country to enjoy its scenic splendour and attend the iconic Thrissur Pooram once the coronavirus threat receded.

"Sharapova, you were right about Sachin, that he is not a person of quality that you should know," a social media user commented in Malayalam, as was hundreds of other messages in the south Indian language.

The tennis star on Wednesday posted a tweet saying "Anyone else got their years confused?" after her twitter and Facebook page got flooded with comments in Malayalam once again like in 2015.

Sharapova had faced the ire of Malayalis in 2015 following her comment in an interview that she did not know Tendulkar.

But many were back on her wall since Wednesday, apologising for their "crude behaviour" six years ago, soon after Tendulkar along with several Bollywood and other cricket stars rallied around the government in its pushback against support from several global celebrities to the farmers' protests against new agri laws.

Known as God of Cricket among his fans, Tendulkar had posted the message as part of identical tweets on India's unity sent out by celebrities in response to international pop star Rihanna expressing solidarity with the farmers' stir.

The tweet did not go down well with his fans too, with many hitting out at their "God".

Over the thousands of comments in Malayalam, all had a similar pattern of apologising to Sharapova for attacking her earlier.

"I am sorry, Maria, the legend. We knew Sachin as a player. But we didn't knew him as a person. You were right and sorry for commenting bad on your FB post," another user said.

One person offered her shawarma and mouth watering Kuzhimanthi (a type of biryani) as part of peace offering and apologised saying, "I am the sorry", borrowing words from a Malayalam movie, while another said"One truck load of apologies, sister. We didn't have your foresightedness. Time proved that you were right."

Nefil Nappy, another user, said "we are sorry for cyber bullying".

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