This year, the Pepsi Indian Premier League has been all about the fans – those who have flocked the stadiums and those who have made their presence and support felt on various IPL social platforms.

In the Group Stage of the tournament, IPL’s partnership with Twitter yielded tremendous response, engaging fans from around the world in a frenzy of online debate, discussion and celebration of the league. The overall fan interaction on the official IPL Twitter handle (@IPL) went up by 24.43 percent and the teams also made some impressive individual progress on the Twitter front.

Here are some numbers that depict how various IPL teams and players fared on the Twitter popularity chart.

1. Fan engagement with IPL on Twitter has seen a significant jump this season

During the Group Stage of IPL 2014, tweets mentioning the official handle @IPL are up by 24.43 % over 2013.

During the Group Stage of IPL 2014, tweets mentioning the official hashtag #PepsiIPL are up by 47.48 % over 2013.

2. The MI vs RR knockout thriller was the most tweeted match of the Group Stage; RCB feature in 5 of the top 10 most tweeted matches of the Group stage - the most for any team

Here’s the list of the top 10 most tweeted matches in the Pepsi IPL 2014 Group Stage:

Most tweeted matches of IPL 2014 during the Group Stage (16 Apr-25 May)

3. CSK have added the most Twitter followers this season, followed by RCB and KXIP

On the all-time list of IPL teams with the most followers on Twitter, CSK consolidated their No.1 position by adding 90,000 new followers during the Group Stage. RCB enhanced their follower-ship by 80,000 and Mumbai Indians by 70,000.

The highest growth percentage on the followers front has been achieved by Kings XI Punjab, who have grown their follower-strength by 34.85%. This success has taken them two rungs up on the list of most followed team, from No.8 to No.6.

IPL Teams Twitter Follower Ranking (As of 25 May, 2014)

4. Virat Kohli is the most followed IPL player on Twitter and was the most tweeted about IPL captain

Virat Kohli went past MS Dhoni during the Group Stage to become the most followed IPL player of all-time. He currently has 3.2 million followers. He is the only IPL player to have more than 3 million followers. Kohli and Dhoni are followed by Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh and Suresh Raina on this list.

Of all the IPL captains, Kohli was the most mentioned throughout the Group Stage with more than 161,000 tweets related to him, followed by MS Dhoni with 93,000.

Top 10 most followed IPL players on Twitter

 5. Mumbai Indians were the most tweeted about team during the Group Stage of IPL 2014

As per the figures from the ‘IPL on Twitter’ page on iplt20.com, MI won the Twitter battle during the Group Stage with 360,000 related tweets (as on May 25), with CSK next on 248,000 and RCB on 214,000 tweets.

Kings XI Punjab, are featured on the fourth spot with 194,000 tweets related to them.

IPL Teams mentioned on Twitter during the Group Stages of IPL 2014 (16 Apr-25 May) vs Actual Points Table