Virat Kohli’s score of one at the World Cup semi-final was a crushing blow to India’s fortune. But the so-called Twitter “community” turned into a virtual lynch mob in response. And Deshdrohi Kamaal R Khan did the unthinkable. He made us almost nostalgic for the recently departed Section 66A with his vicious tweet:

"I request to all the people to go n throw stones at the house of Anushka Sharma who is the main reason for the defeat of India."

Kohli is not the only player to play a bad shot and get dismissed before he even got going. And Anuskha Sharma was not the only wife/girlfriend watching the match. But there was something disgustingly gleeful about the frenzy of Twitterati who turned on her.

“Is Anushka taking flak because she is an actor?” wonders an editorial in Mid-day. “Or is it because she is Virat’s girlfriend and not his wife?”

Courtesy: Anushka Sharma's Facebook page.

Anushka-Virat are a celeb dream team, a coming together of India’s two great obsessions – cricket and Bollywood. That’s why the camera panned obsessively to her face when he came to bat leading Suhel Seth to quip “Has Anushka come in to bat?” That’s why media tomtommed her arrival in Sydney with slide shows about “Cricket Couples who reminds us of Virat-Anushka love saga”. It’s baffling how the courtship of these two young people has already become a “saga”.

But the over-the-top reaction to the loss showed the ugly side of that same obsession. The mob that worships them and follows every half-snippet of news about them with fanatic devotion is also quick to try and tear them to pieces when it feels let down by them.

Some of it is not surprising. These are highly paid celebrities who are worshipped as demi-gods. In good times they play off their celeb couple status in ads together. In bad times that same celebrity status bites them in the butt.

But it’s one thing to joke as @chiragbhaiya does “What did Anushka Sharma tell Virat Kohli before he went out to bat today? 'Virat, I want you here in 5 minutes.' :D”. It’s quite another to tweet “I request to public to boycott Anushka Sharma's films. He is real #DESHDROHI whoever will watch her film anymore. #AUSvIND.

Some of the hysterical reaction is indeed related to the disdain with which we view Bollywood and especially the women who work in it. Part of it is undoubtedly a social media problem which is the petri dish in which trolls thrive. A Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi and Sharmila Tagore didn’t have to fend with the amplifying power of social media that make private jibes and threats go viral and ratchets up the venom factor in the public sphere.

Let’s not blow it out of proportion though. Just going through the Anushka tweets clearly shows the number of people outraged by the likes of KRK far outnumber those who jumped on his bandwagon.

But that does not mean that there wasn’t a level of misogyny shockingly on display and that it did not find way more takers than it should have. For a country that was in a snit about an outsider BBC filmmaker daring to talk about misogyny in India’s Daughter, many of us certainly have no problem hanging it all out on social media for the world to see. We can say #ShameOnTimesNow but they are only catering to an audience out there as well. And Kamaal R Khan still has 614K followers.

And that’s no joke. The misogyny is real even if it comes disguised as a joke because the blame-game only flows one way. For as comedian @PapaCJ tweets:

Just wondering...if ‪@AnushkaSharma's next movie flops, will you blame it on ‪@imVkohli?
(First Post)