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
English cricket team in Australia in 1974–75 when Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson were unfit to play, made 188 - the highest Test score by an England captain in Australia - and won by an innings. He beat New Zealand with a batting average of 240.00 and retained the captaincy for the 1975 Cricket World Cup, where England lost to Australia in the semi-finals. He lost the First Test of the 1975 Ashes series by an innings and was replaced by the combative Tony Greig, never to play Test cricket again. It came as a severe shock to the nervous system of the England batsmen when Australia