Why this useless tried humiliation of BBC Wimbledon host Isa Guha over Jasprit Bumrah ‘primate’ remark should finish, writes Wisden Editor LAWRENCE BOOTH

Ask the dictionary to define ‘primate’, and the first offering is ‘the chief bishop or archbishop of a province’. And the second? ‘A mammal of an order that includes the lemurs, bushbabies, tarsiers, marmosets, monkeys, apes, and humans.’

When Isa Guha, one of the faces of the BBC‘s Wimbledon coverage since Sue Barker’s illustrious career came to the end, began her apology live on Australia’s Fox Sports the day after referring to Indian fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah as ‘the MVP – Most Valuable Primate’, she said she had ‘used a word that can be interpreted in a number of different ways’.

Needless to say, it was the more offensive ways that some seized on, as if Guha – whose parents moved to the UK from Kolkata in the 1970s – would have felt the need to humiliate Bumrah on the grounds of his ethnicity.

And yet here we were, in the eye of a ‘race storm’ apparently designed to harvest clicks and stoke outrage rather than add gravitas to a subject that is both serious and distressing.

Guha’s choice of noun was, quite obviously, not sensible. As live broadcasters are grimly aware, any phrase that invites bad-faith interpretations is best avoided – not least in the age of social-media pile-ons, and in an industry as back-biting as television.

Did she mean to come up with what she thought was a synonym for ‘homo sapiens’? Did she have the ‘humans’ part of the definition in the back of her mind? Did she plump unthinkingly for a word beginning with P, in some stab at humour she now regrets?

In early 2022, she answered a tweet asking users to define Bumrah in a word. She replied: ‘India’s MVP.’ Plainly, the description was lurking in her subconscious, ready to emerge.

But who knows. People say strange things. They sound stranger still when they cannot be retracted, and even stranger when they go viral. And while it’s important to acknowledge that language matters, Guha’s usage of ‘primate’ matters only if you think her intention was to disparage Bumrah.

This would be a curious development. In 2012, Guha – who played 113 times as a seamer for England between 2002 and 2011 – told the Guardian: ‘I have a tremendous affiliation with England because it’s the country where I was born and bred, and I will always support England first in the cricket.

‘Except for when they’re not playing, and India is – then I’ll support India.’

Since India are currently playing Australia, where she regularly spends her winter on commentary duty, it’s safe to conclude she bore Bumrah no animosity.

With nothing more than clumsiness to apologise for, her mea culpa had to tread the impossible line between satisfying media outlets pretending to be angry, and saying sorry in a coherent and meaningful way. It wasn’t possible.

She did, though, get to the nub of the matter: ‘I’m an advocate for equality and someone who has spent their career thinking about inclusion and understanding in the game… As someone who is also of South Asian heritage, I hope people would recognise that there was no other intention or malice there.’

Besides, who was she saying sorry to? The Indian team did not sound offended, and nor did the BCCI. Bumrah himself was silent. If they weren’t fussed, who was? The apology did little more than play into the hands of those who had feigned shock in the first place.

An unwitting addition to the absurdity could be found in comments from her co-broadcaster Ravi Shastri, who – sitting next to her in the studio – praised Guha’s courage for apologising live on national television. He then warmed to his theme: ‘You heard it from the horse’s mouth.’

What next? An apology from Shastri for using an equine metaphor that, if you really wanted it to, might be construed as a comment on Guha’s appearance?

Last year, the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket published a damning 317-page report about long-standing injustices in the English game.

It went into unsettling detail about discrimination based not just on skin colour, but on gender and class. Despite the usual suspects decrying it as a Marxist conspiracy, it was a serious piece of work that shone an uncomfortable light on the prejudices within our game.

As a result, the ECB are more accountable than ever before, and that can only be a good thing – both on the grounds of natural justice, and because English cricket will be stronger if its teams are selected from the country’s full spectrum. This is not difficult stuff.

The debate it sparked took things forward, which is where it needed to go after the Azeem Rafiq affair. The furore over Guha’s comments, on the other hand, is a sideshow that simply demonstrates how much trouble a live microphone can cause.

Test Match Special’s Jonathan Agnew recently described his fear of being cancelled for saying the wrong thing live on air. ‘Oh, yeah, it goes through my mind all the time,’ he told the Daily Telegraph.

‘I had that conversation with my previous boss a couple of years ago. You are working without a script. You’re trying to be entertaining.

‘And yeah, there are loads of groups of people out there who seem to want to be offended. Yeah, bring it on. “Ooh, I’m offended. I’m offended.” Right – you’re cancelled. And the next day they move on to someone else.’

This is not to say that offence should be gratuitously caused, nor that all those who take offence do so indiscriminately.

But Guha’s misstep was a reminder of the dangers of a world that offers riches and kudos to those who successfully navigate it, and potential humiliation if you so much as reach for the wrong word.

Why Crawley could survive the chop 

In the (bad) old days, a performance like Zak Crawley’s in New Zealand – 52 runs in six innings, all ended by Matt Henry – would have meant the chop. 

His career average is now 30, a bit more than Mark Ramprakash and a bit less than Graeme Hick. But it is futile to imagine that the Bazball selectors will apply the logic of their 1990s predecessors.

And, contrary to the misconception, this lot do have their own logic. It goes like this: in England’s two most recent series against India and Australia, Crawley topped the averages, with a total of 887 runs at 46. 

Next year, England play five-Test series against both. You can see the thinking – just as you can see that Crawley looks all at sea on spicy pitches when the ball is doing a bit. 

But, well, he’ll always have Old Trafford, and his 189 off 182 balls against Cummins, Starc and Hazlewood. Just imagine if he can do it again…

Will we see Kohli again? 

This column has already wondered whether England fans will get one last look at Virat Kohli next summer. But he’s doing his best not to make the trip. 

Aside from a pressure-free hundred in the third innings at Perth, when India were already miles ahead, his scores in Australia have been 5, 7, 11 and 3, and he is regularly edging drives, as if it’s England 2014 all over again. 

While English spectators may be disappointed not to catch sight of the one of the phenomena of the age, their bowlers may be less so.

Stokes the sportswriters’ bane 

Is Ben Stokes getting philosophical in his old age? Before the Hamilton Test, he expressed disdain for the idea of ruthlessness – a verdict, he said, only ever applied after the event. 

He’s right, of course. But at this rate sportswriters are going to run out of cliches.