The difference between a score in the 90s and a century is often reflected as the difference between failure and success. It may be illogical, but in cricket, a century has its own magic.
I have been massively proud to have played for and, indeed, captain my country on the cricket field.
I was the ball boy during the Mumbai Test of the home series against South Africa in 2000. I was playing Under-14 cricket.
There are always distractions in international cricket because that’s part of being an international sportsman.
In international cricket you have to thrive on the big stage, you have to deal with the media and the pressure.
I really believe that every game of international cricket should have some sort of meaning and some sort of context to it – so the World Test Championship, the World One-Day League are all really, really important opportunities to the game.
Sport in itself has this power. If you are a poet or a singer, people gravitate. I may not be in the same category, but I will make a comparison with Bob Marley. So it isn’t just cricket where social commentary plays a huge part.
I enjoy playing each and every format, but for me, Test cricket is at the paramount level because I feel everything is tested at that level.
When you play cricket for India, you are always under the scanner. You are always judged by others; you have to live up to it all.
It’s quite strange, because off the field I’m quite shy, quiet, prefer to watch a bit of TV at home, but get me on the cricket field I like it all kicking off.
Cricket is semi-pro for women in Australia, but the girls work damn hard, and it’s credit to them to try and grow the sport.
In Twenty20s, you have to bowl a lot fuller, especially at the death, and you’ve got to be mindful of what you’re doing. But it’s still cricket.
Test cricket gives ultimate satisfaction that I don’t think any other type of cricket does due to the nature and longevity of it.
When I’m away from cricket I switch off totally. Otherwise I would never be able to keep that same hunger.
In 50over cricket there are different ways of playing. It’s not all about smacking it over the top. It’s important someone bats through the innings. That would be one of the options for me.
I am an ardent cricket fan, and I have seen the iconic Sharjah Cricket Stadium matches on TV.
I would have enjoyed playing some county cricket and learning my art that way, but I never had any ambitions at all to play for England, that’s for sure.
There’s a voice inside children that knows right from wrong. I call it listening to your inner Jiminy Cricket. I tell my daughter, ‘If you’re thinking this is not the best idea, it probably isn’t.’
I think my general view of day-night Test cricket is that there is definitely something there that the ICC can keep looking at because it moves the game forward with timing and allows more people to come and watch.
I don’t know how I have got this habit, but I try to play one match and give it my best – it doesn’t matter which level of cricket I am playing in. It gives me satisfaction that I am not thinking about others, not competing with others.
It is all about experience. When you are 7-8 years old, you start playing school cricket and score runs; my coaches, from school level to Rahul Dravid Sir now, all those small, small things – the experiences make a difference.
I can’t leave cricket. It is my passion.
Nothing happens in cricket, ever. Even the highlights resemble a freeze frame.
I’ve always been the outsider. I’ve always been regarded as some extraordinarily dangerous figure. I’m none of those things! I’m just a middle-class boy from Kent who likes cricket and who happened to have a strong view about a supernational government from Brussels.
Pakistan fans are crazy about cricket.
I tie my wedding ring around my neck with an old shoelace. It’s to remind me of why I play cricket: for my family – my wife Ruth and my boys Sam and Luca.
I have learned a lot of interesting things about nutrition in my cricket career but the biggest lesson of all is to ensure your healthy eating habits are sustainable. The best way to eat healthily is to think of nutrition as a lifestyle, not as a diet.
Sure, cricket on a beach on the isle of Jura is different from a Test match in a stadium in Galle, 6000 miles away, despite the sea air.
Since leaving cricket, I’ve tried my hand at professional boxing, a live stage show, and working for TV. I’ve had some interesting experiences, including working with the former basketball player Dennis Rodman.
Some people see life as a game of chess, while others prefer to see it as a game of cricket; but the longer I live, the more I think of it as a game of Consequences.
I was part of an Under-15 squad training at the National Cricket Academy in Bangalore.
Test cricket is about respecting the opposition, the conditions and the circumstances.
Nowadays, with technology coming into cricket, people start to analyse, and if you only have one or two tricks, people will start to line you up.
During my years of professional cricket in England, I realised that although the Australians were talented players, tactically they were a bit naive when compared to those who played full-time on the English circuit. You might find this arrogant, but that was the reality then.
Money wasn’t the motivating factor in calling time on my international career and focusing on T20 cricket. If I was here to make as much money as I can, I would be playing 10 to 12 tournaments a year.
If you play good cricket, a lot of bad things get hidden.
At 17, I realized that it’s going to be a tough decision to make, but I had the clarity of thought to walk out of cricket and try my luck in acting.
It’s incredible to watch how our cricket clubs depend on volunteers.
My whole obligation was to West Indies cricket. As I have always said, ‘I have never made a run for me.’
Cricket the world over, I don’t think, will ever know how different things would be without Kerry Packer.
In Ranji cricket, I am used heavily as a bowler, but in international cricket I hardly get four overs, and sometimes I never even get to bowl and bat at number eight.
I think most cricket fans would accept that Dravid and Tendulkar are very different individuals but they are both great players.
I didn’t play an ODI game for 15 months when I was probably the best performer in one-day cricket. It happens in life. The best in the world are at times shown the door.
To be a commentator, you must have a life outside cricket, too. If cricket is all that you know, then you would not be a great commentator.
Both sides have been playing tremendous cricket over a couple of years and they’re both very good units.
My father and I always discuss cricket.
Switching from acting to cricket isn’t difficult, because I have represented Delhi in the under-19 category. Plus cricket is in my blood.
The history of Test cricket will suggest if you hold the top of off longer than anyone else you will have success, in England particularly it’s about owning the top of off.
You have to just adjust to the conditions quickly because there is a big difference in 50-over and 20-over cricket, and if you back yourself, you will do well.
It’s all you hear on a cricket field – ‘Knock his head off, knock his head off.’ Cricket has gone too far. It shouldn’t be posturing, abusing.
Test cricket should be No. 1 for every cricketer.
Guys are playing a lot of limited overs cricket and not making that adjustment when it comes to the longer version and pay a price for that.
If you look at cricket per se, if you didn’t have T20 cricket, Test cricket will die. People don’t realise. You just play Test cricket, and don’t play one-day cricket and T20 cricket, and speak to me after 10 years. The economics will just not allow the game to survive.
I loved playing cricket from my childhood. My dad made me play in the streets, and my interest grew. He put me in a club, seeing this. My habit grew from that point.
I sometimes like to do plyometric work which hits my core and the rest of my body at the same time: things like jumping to catch balls, box jumps, hurdling over cricket stumps, bounds, hops, or combined exercises like three jumps in a row followed by a sprint.
One of the things about the six sixes, which really comes over me every time somebody asks a question or says to me, ‘I’ve just seen them,’ or people always ask me about it… It makes me feel that’s the only thing I’ve ever done in the history of cricket.
I just want that someone in their 50s or 60s, when they talk about Brian Lara, they say ‘I enjoyed watching that guy playing cricket.’
I can’t keep playing 10-11 months a year and keep being sharp after 15 years of international cricket.
I have a lot of friends in the Australian cricket team, and they have told me a lot about India. Brett Lee was telling me about the food and Bollywood. I am the kind of person who likes to embrace the culture of a place, and I really want to travel and see the various temples around the country.
We all grow up dreaming of playing international cricket.
Without television, cricket would be a poorer place;the two have to coexist.
The Australian approach to playing cricket in general is quite an aggressive one.
