Conrad puts a rare foot wrong by using taboo g-word

Shukri Conrad could have said he wanted to make the Indians discombobulated, to mentally disintegrate, to bow and scrape, to eat humble pie. He didn't say that. He said something exponentially more provocative.

Asked why South Africa had batted for four minutes longer than five hours to establish a lead 161 runs bigger than any that has been overhauled in the fourth innings of a Test in India, Conrad reached for a notorious moment in cricket history.

"We wanted the Indians to spend as much time on their feet out in the field," Conrad told a press conference in Guwahati on Tuesday, where the fourth day's play in the second Test ended with India 27/2 chasing what would be a world record target of 549.

So far, so good: Conrad can't be faulted for that. But then…

"We wanted them to really grovel, to steal a phrase. To bat them completely out the game, and then say come and survive on the last day and an hour this evening."

He lost his audience at grovel.

The g-word has been a taboo in the game since May 1976, when Tony Greig—before that year's tour of England by West Indies—said: "I'm not really sure they're as good as everyone thinks. These guys, if they get on top they are magnificent cricketers. But if they're down, they grovel, and I intend, with the help of Closey [Brian Close] and a few others, to make them grovel."

The word itself is not the problem. The trouble is its close connotations with slavery and racism. And with who used it in this instance.

For someone from the South African backwater of Queenstown, who had been gifted his future by being born white into apartheid, to want to make black people whose forebears had been enslaved grovel was beyond the pale.

Greig's comment might have raised less of an alarm had it first appeared in print. But he made it in a television interview, where his grating rural Eastern Cape accent barbed his words.

Even someone as urbane and measured as Clive Lloyd, the Windies captain, was stirred: "The word grovel is guaranteed to raise the blood pressure of any black man. The fact they were used by a white South African made it even worse. We were angry and West Indians everywhere were angry. We resolved to show him and everyone else that the days for grovelling were over."

And they did, by winning the five-match series 3-0—which sparked West Indies' dominance of the world game into the early 1990s.

Greig was always a crass and clumsy communicator, even in his later years as a prominent commentator. He would later joke that what he called his "silly statement" had backfired, and that "I was the one who ended up grovelling". That showed just how little he understood of the seriousness of what he had said.

Whether or not Greig, who had played his last domestic first-class match in South Africa in March 1972, was racist is moot. But he returned to the country during apartheid to play for teams who toured in defiance of the international boycott.

Conrad, who was nine when Greig said what he said, grew up under the heel of the laws that unfairly elevated people like Greig. Thus it is difficult to accuse Conrad of racism—he is as brown as those he wanted to make grovel. But he should have known better.

Despite an intensely competitive first Test at Eden Gardens, where the visitors won by 30 runs, and a one-sided affair in Guwahati, where another South Africa win seems certain, the series has been played in amicable fashion.

When Tristan Stubbs and Mohammed Siraj accidentally collided midpitch in Guwahati on Saturday, Stubbs made sure to check that Siraj was in one piece. Later, Siraj held up a hand and smiled at Stubbs in a clearly jovial moment—please don't run me over again.

In Kolkata, when India's players were caught on the stump microphones using disparaging language about Temba Bavuma's height, Conrad himself sensibly stepped in to stop a casual comment from ballooning into controversy.

That level of maturity might not have prevailed had similar scenarios played out in matches involving previous, more ego-fuelled iterations of these teams.

So Conrad's words smack of nothing more nor less than bad manners. Hence he can't complain if Indians see them that way. His team should wrap up a historic victory on Wednesday, but the South Africans will be in India for another 25 days to play three ODIs and five T20Is. It would be a pity if the tone of the tour changes.

Quite why South Africa wanted the Indians to grovel is another matter. They resumed on Tuesday already 314 runs ahead. Only once have a team scored more than that to win a Test in India. Yet the South Africans batted on into the ninth over of the third session before they declared. Why?

"We looked at how best we were going to use the new ball—in the morning [on Wednesday] we still want a newish, hardish ball," Conrad said. "We also felt that when the shadows come across the pitch in the evening, there's something in it for the quick bowlers. So we didn't want to declare too early and not be able to use that."

What would he say to people who argue South Africa batted for too long, perhaps to the extent of putting in danger their chances of winning by running out of time to dismiss the home side on the last day?

"We've got to base it on sound judgement, and if that doesn't work out, well, it doesn't. But I don't think there's a right and wrong in any of this."

All of which makes perfect sense without using words that are going to snag headlines and subvert what should be the narrative.

Conrad is a smart, likeable, usually respectful man and a highly accomplished coach with a record built on decades of success at all levels. He has earned and enjoyed many fine moments in the game. This isn't among them.