Shukri Conrad Finally Addresses Grovel-Gate: ‘I Could Have Chosen A Better Word’

South Africa head coach Shukri Conrad has publicly addressed and clarified his ‘grovel’ comment for the first time since his remark, which was made after day four of the Guwahati Test, sparked a major uproar.

After South Africa made India toil in the second innings in Guwahati, setting a whopping 549 for the hosts to win, Conrad said that his side decided to bat over six hours on the fourth day to make the Indian team ‘grovel’. The word, which has a historically racial undertone to it in a cricketing context, did not go down well with the public, with the South Africa head coach copping criticism from journalists and former players, both Indian and South African.

Now Conrad has clarified his comments and has admitted that he could have ‘chosen a better word’.

"On reflection, it was never my intention to cause any malice or not be humble about anything. I could have chosen a better word because it left it open for people to put their own context to it," Conrad said, reported ESPNCricinfo.

"The only context I ever intended it to be was that we wanted India to spend a lot of time in the field and make it really tough for them. I've got to be careful what word I use here now because context could be attached to that as well."

Speaking further about the context of his comments, Conrad said: "We wanted the Indians to spend as much time on their feet out in the field, we wanted them to really grovel, to steal a phrase, bat them completely out the game, and then say to them, 'come and survive on the last day and an hour this evening.'"

The 58-year-old reasserted that there was no ‘malice intended’ in his comments, and regretted the fact that his statement took away some gloss from his side’s historic achievement.

"It's really a pity. Maybe what it did do was spice up the ODI series, and especially with India winning that now, the T20 series becomes even more so," Conrad said. 

"The unfortunate thing is, with all the noise that that word caused, I still think it's a perfectly good English word, but I just left it open to too many interpretations. What it did was take away the gloss of what was a really special win for our Test team. It's unfortunate, but there was definitely no malice intended."