South African coach Shukri Conrad clarifies grovel remark after India series

South African head coach Shukri Conrad clarified his controversial ‘grovel’ remark, saying it was not meant with malice but to make India spend more time on the field. He admitted poor word choice and reflected on South Africa’s ODI series loss

Visakhapatnam: In an apparent bid to downplay his controversial comment ‘grovel’ on the Indian team recently, South African head coach Shukri Conrad said that the reaction during the second match of the two-Test series, which his team had won 2-0, was just meant to make India 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 of the game and then say to them well come and survive on the last day and an hour this evening,” the South African coach said after the team lost the three-match one-day series 1-2 to India here on Saturday.

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Even while stating that his intentions were not wrong, Conrad accepted that he could have chosen a better word.

“On reflection, it was never my intention to cause any malice. I could have chosen a better word. My only thought was about India spending more time on the field. One has to be careful about choosing words. But there was no malice intended. Being humble is the cornerstone of the South African Test team,” said Conrad.

Reflecting on the one-day series loss, Conrad said losing Quinton de Kock (who scored a brilliant century in vain in the decider) just before the drinks break was massive. “Another few overs from him and we would have posted something competitive. And then towards the back end, when Brevis and Jansen got out in the same over to Kuldeep, you end up 40-50 runs short of where you potentially could have been,” he said.

“Because we didn’t post a big enough score, the Indian openers were under no pressure. They didn’t have to take any risks. We let ourselves down with the bat. We needed to post something a lot more competitive to put India under pressure,” Conrad said.

“The toss does play a part and batting second is easier, but that’s not the reason India thumped us tonight,” he said.