Cricket might be a more international sport than many people realize. In the past four days, the Australia-India Test match in Sydney has attracted a barrage of social media interest across Australia, India, the UK and to a lesser extent, Pakistan. However, the largest proportion of mentions come from the US, at close to 30 percent, compared with 23 percent from India and 21 percent from Australia. It’s not surprising then that Microsoft’s US headquarters boosts its own cricket tournament teamed up by very passionate Indian expats.

Notice also how a strong, self-interested and highly mobile fan base pushes Twitter traffic to the largest component of overall mentions, vis a vis news or blogging coverage. In the UK, for example, news mentions hit 42 percent (in Australia it was 65 percent), while Twitter mentions were 39 percent of the total chatter. By comparison, the Indian market, with its 600m mobile hand sets, pushed Twitter chatter a very high benchmark of 62 percent.