Piers Morgan criticises India’s Rio performance, gets trolled on Twitter

British journalist, TV show host Piers Morgan slams criticises India’s Olympic celebration. Gets trolled

British journalist and television show host Piers Morgan criticised India’s performance at the Rio Olympics on Wednesday, provoking anger in Twitter users from India.

British journalist and television show host Piers Morgan

Morgan took to Twitter to call India’s celebration of two Olympic medals exaggerated. He tweeted: “Country with 1.2 billion people wildly celebrates 2 losing medals. How embarrassing is that?”

Morgan was immediately trolled by angry Indians, among them author (and a man also known to court Twitter controversy) Chetan Bhagat, cricketer Virendra Sehwag and the outspoken columnist, author, socialite Suhel Seth.

Bhagat quoted Morgan’s tweet to say, “We honor achievers Peirs. Top 3 in the world,despite 3rd world sports facilities isn’t loser.It is freaking amazing!”

Morgan rallied back, using his misspelt name, to say “Noted, Chatan.” Bhagat, missed the joke, and tweeted back to correct him.

Cricketer Virendra Sehwag too chimed in with a witty response, asking Morgan if it was embarrassing for England -- the country that invented the sport of cricket -- to participate in the World Cup without having won it even once.

Bollywood came up. As did England’s cricket rankings.

One user tweeted: “Do you think Piers is doing this for a Bollywood role?”

Instead of backing down, though, Morgan kept rallying back. He pretty much reiterated his first tweet, by saying, “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.”

Stand-up comedian Karan Talwar was one of the few to tweet in his favour: “Troll him all you want but @piersmorgan is right. The excessive celebration doesn’t quite match the result.”

Soon, he was trending on the India charts. And had inspired GIFs, abuse, shock and humour.