mid-day Opinion: Cricket’s ‘Grovelgate’ is 50 years old

Departed England captain Tony Greig, who caused a stir in 1976. PIC/MID-DAY ARCHIVES

The year 1976 was a dramatic one for cricket. Greg Chappell's Australians handed the West Indies their worst margin of defeat (1-5 in February). India became the first team after Australia in 1948 to chase down a 400-plus target to win the Trinidad Test in April. In the following Test at Kingston, five Indian batsmen were absent hurt in the second innings.

In May, Clive Lloyd's West Indians travelled to England for a five-Test series against Tony Greig's men. Greig led the Sussex team that played the tourists at Hove from May 29 to June 1 but left the game, according to journalist Simon Lister in the book, Fire in Babylon, to see a dentist. On his return to the ground, Greig did a pre-series interview with the BBC. "I'm not really quite sure they're [West Indies] as good as everyone thinks they are. I'm not all that worried about them. I think you must remember that the West Indians, 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 [Brian] Closey and a few others, to make them grovel," said the England captain.

"Grovel" spread like wild fire. Lister defined it as: "To lie or crawl abjectly on the ground with one's faced downwards or to act obsequiously in order to obtain forgiveness or favour."

Viv Richards said in the film Fire in Babylon that the team took it "seriously… very seriously." Before the first Test, Richards smashed hundreds against Hampshire and MCC. In the Test series, his run of scores were 232, 63, 4, 135, 66, 38, and 291.

The team's opening batsman Gordon Greenidge wrote in The Man in the Middle that Greig's remark constituted "one of the most memorable quotes of the cricketing year." It was more than just that.

Nevertheless, as Greenidge reckoned, acted a spur to him and many of his teammates. After his successful debut tour to India in 1974-75, Greenidge's four innings across two Tests in Australia yielded only 11 runs. He ended the five-Test series in England with eight short of 600 runs at 65.77. Greenidge was no stranger to racist taunts having migrated to England as a kid.

Michael Holding in Whispering Death called Greig's utterance "ill-chosen." Holding wrote: "Grovel was a particularly offensive and ill-chosen word for him to have used in reference to a predominantly black team. It smacked of racism and apartheid and provided us with a very powerful psychological stimulus."

His captain Clive Lloyd was equally scathing in Living for Cricket: "Whether Greig realised it or not, the world ‘grovel' is one guaranteed to raise the blood pressure of any black man. It [grovel] conjures up hated images of hundreds of years of slavery and servility, and its use was compounded, in this case, by the fact that Greig was a white South African. We were angry and West Indians everywhere were angry."

The West Indies were hell-bent on making amends for the shellacking in Australia and Greig gave them more reason to show what they were capable of. The previous England vs West Indies series was drawn 1-1 in the Caribbean. In 1976, the first two Tests at Nottingham and Lord's were drawn. The next three were splendidly won by the visitors; the victory margins being 425 runs, 55 runs, and 231 runs.

Comeback man Close (last played for England in 1967), who Greig was depending so much on, scored 60 and 46 at Lord's, but his final Test of his career at Old Trafford produced 22 runs. He battled hard though, escaped death and when he returned, unbeaten on one at the end of the third day, he was asked by the dressing room assistant whether he could get him a drink. Close asked for a bottle of whiskey. Greig admitted in My Story that for the first time in his life he was frightened while batting.

Not only did Greig cause such a situation. The selectors too came made some strange calls. Tony Cozier, the voice of West Indies cricket for years on end, said that he wondered why was there so much talk of intimidatory bowling when England sent two veteran players as openers in the Old Trafford Test - Close (aged 45) and John Edrich (39). Celebrated Australian writer Ray Robinson wrote about a conversation between Keith Miller, a typical straight-talking Australian great and England selector Alec Bedser during the second Test at Lord's. It went like this. Miller: "The trouble with your side, Alec, is it has too many old men. Bedser: "But where are the young players good enough for Tests, Keith?" Miller: "Give me a car for a week and I'll bring you a young side to do better than your present one."
The series ended on August 17 at The Oval, where Holding claimed 14 wickets and those included Greig - clean bowled - in both innings. In the end, Greig grovelled which may have caused some laughs, but couldn't erase what he said at Hove.

mid-day's Deputy Editor Clayton Murzello is a purist with an open stance.
He tweets @ClaytonMurzello. Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com
The views expressed in this column are the individual's and don't represent those of the paper.