West Indian cricket team in England in 1976 the West Indian get on top they are magnificent cricketers, but if they’re down, they grovel. And I intend, with the help of Closey and a few others, to make them grovel.” The insensitive comments only inflamed the racial and colonial implications surrounding the 1976 series. The remark was particularly provocative coming from Greig, the white South African-born captain of England. West Indian bowler, Michael Holding recalled how the comment “Smacked of racism and Apartheid. He got our backs up and made us more determined.” Greig claimed the word "grovel" was used only as a response to the way the
Tony Greig consciously set out to build a rapport with the Indian crowd, for instance, playing 'dead' when loud firecrackers went off in the ground. England went on to score one of their most convincing wins in a very long time when they won the first three Tests by huge margins. Greig rated the win at Calcutta, when he scored 103 on a broken pitch, and struggling with a stomach bug, in front of 100,000 Indian fans, as the finest moment of his career. With 342 runs (at 42) and ten wickets, Greig had regained form to take with him to Australia.