British journalist Piers Morgan who is known for his sarcastic remarks created quite a furore earlier in the day when he ridiculed India’s medal tally at the recently concluded 2016 Rio Olympics claiming the Indian contingent should have won more than just a couple of medals. While social media users raged at Morgan’s comments, former Indian cricketer Virender Sehwag gave the most fitting reply ridiculing the England cricket team’s failure to win an ODI World Cup despite being the country where the game was born.
Badminton player PV Sindhu and wrestler Sakshi Malik were India’s only two medalists at the Rio Olympics winning silver and bronze respectively and the duo were greeted to a huge welcome after they touched down in India. People flocked to the streets to greet the athletes while monetary rewards have been pouring in for the two Olympians who achieved medal glory at this year's Olympics.
Ridiculing what he saw as the excessive celebrations, Morgan posted on his official Twitter account that the scenes were embarrassing considering how India had only two medals to show in their kitty despite having a population well in excess of the 1 billion mark. He also remarked that it was a shame that India couldn’t manage even a single gold medal at Rio.
Unsurprisingly, the Indian Twitterati were out in full force to hit out at Morgan for the unnecessary comments with the likes of Indian author Chetan Bhagat and Australia cricket legend Shane Warne pitching in to express their view that the comments were in bad taste.
The most fitting reply though came from Sehwag who has been a star on Twitter with his witty birthday wishes for cricketers slowly becoming the stuff of legends. He was intent on turning the joke on the England cricket team asking Morgan how embarrassing it was to see his country’s national team fail to win the ODI World Cup despite being the ones who invented the Gentleman’s game.
Sehwag’s reply did leave Morgan short of words for a reply though he did try to save himself reminding Sehwag that England had won the T20 World Cup in 2010 and that they had a good chance of repeating the feat if only out-of-favour Kevin Pietersen was considered for selection by the English selectors.
The way Morgan was forced to resort to damage control makes one remind of the time when Sourav Ganguly silenced former England skipper Nasser Hussain in the commentary box when the latter ridiculed India’s failure to make it to the FIFA World Cup even once. Ganguly was quick to retort ridiculing the English national team’s failure to eve progress to the latter stages of the tournament despite being a constant entry over the past 50 years since winning the biggest prize in football in 1966.
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