Earlier this week, the world’s largest cricket stadium known as the Sardar Patel Stadium or the Motera Stadium was renamed Narendra Modi Stadium. Among many who took to Twitter to share their thoughts, cricketer and author Tom Holland took to Twitter to express his views.
He tweeted, "I'm a huge admirer of the modesty Modi showed in naming the world's largest cricket stadium after himself."
He added, "Not always a good sign for countries when leaders start pulling that trick...(sic)."
However, his sarcastic tweet didn't go well with Indian Twitterati who mistook him for Hollywood actor Tom Holland. While the former Holland is a cricketer and an English author who has published several books on classical and medieval history, actor Holland has starred in several movies including the Spider-Man franchise.
Incidentally, an upcoming Spider-Man movie had been announced just a few days prior and the misunderstanding seems to have generated massive hate for the actor and also, the movie. The actor was even accused of spreading ‘international propaganda' with Twitter users calling him out for being a part of a "conspiracy."
Soon, #BoycottSpiderman started to trend on Twitter with many users calling Holland 'anti-national' and accusing him of being associated with the ‘toolkit’ controversy. After the issue blew up, author Tom Holland decided to take matters into his own hands and set the record straight.
He tweeted:
"Oh dear - I seem single-handedly to have destroyed prospects for the next Spider-Man in India."
"My apologies to @SpiderManMovie . I should have remembered that with great power comes great responsibility."
"Just for the record, & to save Marvel’s profits in India, I freely acknowledge that Narendra Modi is a man of immense humility, and that his naming the world’s largest cricket stadium after himself is in no way quite hilariously immodest."