Social networks pull up their socks for the T20 World Cup

There was a time when most of the information we amassed about cricket came from the commentators of matches whose voices were broadcasted over the airwaves across the nation. Fans, players, students and bookies would hurdle around a television and transistor to witness titans clash for the Cricket World Cup.

However, with the conversations over the sport trickling over to new mediums, the coverage on and interaction with cricket has become more vibrant. Whether it's Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, access to the next GIF of an unbelievable catch or a funny tweet from one player to teh other is only a few clicks away.

Facebook

The most obvious feature Facebook can pull out and has is an altered profile picture with the banner of your team. All you have to do is get to the Game Face app and select ICC World T20 from the drop down menu to try out team banners.

And then there's a new stickers pack for the messenger app, the official ICC, Indian Cricket Team and individual's pages to follow for videos, trivia and updates.

Instagram

While Facebook has added features and hosts pages for your cricket cravings, Instagram accounts from players such as Virat Kohli, Yuvraj Singh, Rohit Sharma, Harbhajan Singh and Ajinkya Rahane will get you closer to the field with the cricketers handling their own accounts.

Alternatively, search for #wt20 for the latest selfies, memes and posts from fans and players across the globe.

Twitter

While the previous two mediums are great to soothe your craving for cricket when the matches aren't being played, Twitter excels at giving you real-time reactions and trolls. Just look for the trending hastags related to the match at hand and all the tweets, accounts, images and videos can be reached within a few clicks. Also, while tweeting, don't forget to use #IND for the India flag and #WT20 for the trophy emojis.

To take you back to the good old days of trump cards, Twitter will send you a digital Trump Card of a player with his statistics from across the 16 teams playing in the ICC World T20 if you tweet to @ICCLive with the #WT20Heroes.

ICC is teaming up with Twitter for the #AskCaptain contest. Tweeting to @ICC with the hashtag #AskCaptain will let you submit queries for post-interviews. But if you're looking for some behind-the-scene footage, head over to Periscope and Vine.

Google

Google isn't a social network but the easiest way to get a ball-by-ball score without being caught or draining your mobile data. The latest feature on Google Search will give you live cricket scores on relevant searches. The feature works on desktop and mobile and updates automatically eliminating the need to refresh every few seconds.

Read more: Keep getting live cricket scores on Google search without refreshing

India's fist match in the T20 World Cup is on Tuesday and till the action begins, get to these portals to keep soothe your excitement.