Piers Morgan and Virender Sehwag buried the hatchet on Twitter on New Year's Eve. The response by many to the UK journalist's tweet is shameful and insults both Viru and India. Read on to know more...
Twitterati trolling Piers Morgan for thanking Virender Sehwag is shameful!
Virender Sehwag
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Virender Sehwag, the 'Nawab of Twitter', enjoys a huge fandom on the social media platform. His witty one-liners and unique birthday wishes is always appreciated.
Even his 'targets' -- cricketers, both past and present -- enjoy his wit. But there has been one person who has repeatedly clashed with the 38-year-old former cricketer on Twitter -- UK journalist Piers Morgan.
It all started in August 2016, when Morgan mocked the 'wild celebrations' in India for winning two medals at the 2016 Rio Olympics -- badminton star PV Sindhu and wrestling ace Sakshi Malik. The TV host made fun of India and Indians for not producing gold medallists. He termed India's Olympics medal tally an embarrassment and felt that the celebrations for just two medals that weren't gold was over the top. Morgan also tweeted that it was 'shameful' that 1.2 billions couldn't produce a gold medallist.
Viru immediately took up cudgels for India as he reminded Morgan of England's lack of achievements in the field of cricket, which the English had invented.
The 51-year-old journalist then tried to bait Sehwag with a bet. Morgan’s now-deleted tweet read — “Hi @virendersehwag, I bet you 1 million rupees to charity that England wins a ODI World Cup before India wins an Olympic Gold. Accept?”
But this time Sehwag's legions of followers were there to 'correct' Morgan and remind the Britisher that India had already won nine gold medals.
Sehwag's 'online arch-nemesis' then took to Twitter to 'correct' the former cricketer's spelling and got kicked by Indians for it.
So it was nice when on New Year's Eve after Sehwag asked his Twitter followers to write about their best moments with him in 2016 that Morgan replied with a 'thank you note'.
The TV show host tweeted, "You got me trending in India for days & 1000s of new followers. Thanks mate."
Piers Morgan
Viru too buried the hatchet in style and responded with 'India has a big heart' tweet.
New Year's is a time to forget the old and ring in the new. But this wasn't the case with many Twitterati who decided to troll Morgan for thanking Viru.
The fact that both Sehwag and Morgan were conducting a polite conversation and hoping to end the year on a positive note was not to their liking and they had to bring out the knives and target the TV journalist.
While Morgan has been in the wrong several times and deservedly got brickbats on Twitter, this wasn't one of those moments.
And, especially, with Sehwag having talked about India's generosity, the attack on Morgan insulted both the 'Nawab of Twitter' and 'India'. And also made Sehwag out to be a liar since Indians were not being generous and letting bygones be bygones.
Here's Viru's tweet on New Year's Eve that started it all:
Tweet the best moments you had with me this year. How did I contribute to joy in your life ?
— Virender Sehwag (@virendersehwag) December 31, 2016
Please share tweet screenshots, moments u liked
Piers Morgan responded with:
You got me trending in India for days & 1000s of new followers. Thanks mate. https://t.co/yc4bhL1Hwc
— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) December 31, 2016
Sehwag was graciousness personified in his response:
Cheers! India has a big heart .
— Virender Sehwag (@virendersehwag) December 31, 2016
Enjoy ! https://t.co/BEwgLQj3N8
But Indians couldn't let this opportunity slip by and trolled the Britisher:
@piersmorgan professional way of begging for trend & followers!!! @virendersehwag
— navaneethan r (@RNavaneethan03) December 31, 2016
@piersmorgan @virendersehwag India has big heart at Beggars like U
— Ravi (@raviraj46364) December 31, 2016
@piersmorgan Jesters r alwys welcome in India
— Mohnish Patel (@mohnishpatel8) December 31, 2016
@piersmorgan The number of "followers" you have does not make you better than anyone else. Hitler had millions, Jesus had 12.
— Mukund Karnani (@Mukund_Karnani) January 1, 2017
@piersmorgan is that the proper brit way of saying "I am no good just by myself"? We understand U need help hence the shoot & scoot attitude
— IndiaFirst (@IndiaFirst1857) January 1, 2017
@virendersehwag India gave Britain bread and butter from its throat for more than 150 years, Twitter trend is nothing. Enjoy. @piersmorgan
— Kshitij Sharma (@iitian_kshitij) December 31, 2016
@virendersehwag @piersmorgan Dont mess with VIRU paaji bcz he is much more destroyer on Twitter then as a batsman :)
— Sachin Tendulkar (@Sachin_lover) December 31, 2016
@virendersehwag we gave kohinoor to you so fans following is not big deal ðÂÂu00c2u009fÂÂu00c2u0098ÂÂu00c2u0082 @piersmorgan
— Jay Paul (@i_am_jaypaul) December 31, 2016
@virendersehwag #piersmorgan we tolerated u for 300 years what's 1000 new followers compared to that if u want keep the England team there
— GI7505 (@gi7505) December 31, 2016