Angered by Sachin Tendulkar’s tweet on farmers’ protest, scores of Keralaites flooded tennis star Maria Sharapova’s social media pages with messages, apologising for criticising her in 2015 when she had in an interview pleaded ignorance about the cricket icon.

While most messages were apologetic of their previous comments, 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, in the vein of hundreds of similar 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 pages were flooded with comments in Malayalam, like in 2015.

Sharapova had faced the ire of Malayalees in 2015 following her comment in an interview that she did not know Tendulkar. Many were back on her wall 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 international celebrities’ support to the farm protests. Tendulkar’s tweet did not go down well with his fans, with many hitting out at their “God”.

On Sharapova’s wall, the thousands of comments in Malayalam had a similar pattern. “I am sorry, Maria, the legend. We knew Sachin as a player. But we didn’t know him as a person. You were right and sorry for commenting bad on your FB post,” a user said. One person offered her shawarma and Kuzhimanthi (a type of biryani) 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.”

NefilNappy, another user, said “we are sorry for cyber bullying”.