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 Channel 9 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’.
![[Bumrah is regarded as one of the best bowlers in the game and took six wickets at the Gabba]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/12/17/11/93167739-14201063-It_came_as_Bumrah_left_took_five_wickets_during_Sunday_s_play_at-a-2_1734433681253.jpg)
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.
![[Former England international Guha is a regular feature on Fox's coverage of cricket in Australia]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/12/17/11/93177585-14201063-Guha_allegedly_called_Bumrah_a_primate_during_a_conversation_wit-m-12_1734434966937.jpg)
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?.
![[India (pictured - captain Rohit Sharma) did not sound offended, and Bumrah himself was silent]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/12/17/11/93227967-14201063-image-a-4_1734433916806.jpg)
