On Wednesday, British journalist and TV presenter Piers Morgan was drawn into a long online fight in Twitter after he called India’s presentation at the Rio Olympics “shameful” and the following celebrations “embarrassing”.
See what he has said,
Piers Morgan
@piersmorgan
“Country with 1.2 billion people wildly celebrates 2 losing medals. How embarrassing is that?”
“1,200,000,000 people and not a single Gold medal at the Olympics? Come on India, this is shameful. Put the bunting away & get training.”
Morgan, who is frequently acerbic on Twitter, also got into something of a tiff with Chetan Bhagat, when the novelist tweeted at him.
Chetan Bhagat
@chetan_bhagat
“We honor achievers Peirs. Top 3 in the world, despite 3rd world sports facilities isn’t loser. It is freaking amazing!”
Latching on to the miss spelt name, Morgan retorted with: “Noted, Chatan”. The exchange resulted in a parallel spinoff with a section of Indian Twitter making up “Peirs and Chatan” jokes.
Shane Warne
@ShaneWarne
“Why are you having a go at my Indian friends buddy? I think enough talk about the Olympics & medal tallies! Ha ha”
Virender Sehwag, the fiery, former opening batsman pulled back no punches.
Virender Sehwag
@virendersehwag
“We cherish every small happiness’, But Eng who invented Cricket,&yet2win a WC,still continue to playWC.Embarrassing?”
Mr Sehwag’s answer immediately went viral on Twitter with over 5,000 re-tweets and 5,600 likes in two hours. Not one to back down easily, Mr Morgan shot back saying that if Kevin Pietersen was playing, England would have won world cup.
Piers Morgan
@piersmorgan
“Very embarrassing, Legend.
If @KP24 was playing, we’d win the WC.
Just as we won T20 WC & he was Man of Series.”
Then Sehwag’s reply was,
Virender Sehwag
@virendersehwag
“KP is a legend no doubt,bt wasnt he born in SA,&by ur logic Eng shd hv won 2007WC.
Why hv prblm wid our ppl,celbrtng”
But there is some twitter user who agreed with Morgan.
@mphholdings wrote, ““Hate to admit, @piersmorgan is right A powerful nation like India, needs to compete with USChinaUK at the Olympics.”
@FrankZ_AJ tweeted, “Quit whining people. @piersmorgan is right you know? How many of us knew Sakshi Malik a month ago? Being good @ cricket ain’t enough.”
Morgan had struck a appeasing note, “If India can produce a batsman as brilliant as @sachin_rt then it can produce Gold medal winning Olympians. Needs investment & focus.”
Last month, Morgan had a parallel experience when he tweeted about the celebrations at Wales’ performance at the Euro Cup. “All it does is tell Welsh kids that if they came 3rd, they’ll get treated like winners. Wrong message.” This as well had prompted an annoyed backlash.
