Shukri Conrad admitted his mistake. (Photo- GETTY/PTI)
Team India won the ODI series played against South Africa 2-1. There was a big controversy earlier in this series. In fact, during the Guwahati Test match played between the two teams, South Africa coach Shukri Conrad had given a controversial statement. He used the word ‘grovel’ for Team India, which is considered to have racial connotations. In such a situation, Shukri Conrad has clarified his statement and said that his intention was never to hurt anyone, but he believes that he could have chosen better words. However, he did not apologize for this statement.
There was an uproar over this statement of the South African coach.
In fact, on the fourth day of the Guwahati Test match, South Africa batted longer than expected and had set a target of 549 runs for India to win. Explaining the reason behind this, Conrad had said in the press conference after the end of the fourth day’s play, ‘We wanted the Indian team to spend maximum time on the field. We wanted them to get on their knees. We wanted to completely take him out of the match.
Shukri Conrad had used the word ‘grovel’ in his statement, which created a huge uproar. This is the same word over which controversy was seen for the first time in the year 1976. Then this word was used by former England all-rounder Tony Greig against West Indies. Because the word grovel means to crawl lying face down on the ground. The use of such words has been sensitive in the history of cricket, due to which Conrad clarified the issue 11 days later in Visakhapatnam.
Shukri Conrad gave this clarification
Shukri Conrad said that the choice of words was unintentional and was never meant to show disrespect or arrogance. Conrad said, ‘It was never my intention to cause ill will towards anyone. I could have thought about a better word, it is an English word, but it can be misinterpreted. I just wanted to say that India spend a lot of time on the field and it becomes really difficult for them.
Shukri Conrad further said, ‘This is really a matter of regret. Maybe this may have added spice to the ODI series, and especially now that India has won, the T20 series has become even more spicy. Despite all the noise about this word, I still believe that it is a perfectly correct English word.