I keep trying to bring a more professional approach to New Zealand cricket. It’s an uphill battle. I stay in the game because I find it intriguing and interesting. I’m not interested in coaching international sides. I don’t mind short-term coaching. I don’t want to get involved in the politics of teams.
Down the mine I dreamed of cricket; I bowled imaginery balls in the dark; I sent the stumps spinning and heard them rattling in the tunnels. No mishap was going to stop me from bowling in the real game, especially this one.
With Test cricket, it’s very important that you are bowling at high speed but T20 cricket is a great way to be versatile.
Cricket is not gender biased. It isn’t that men’s cricket is different and women’s a different one.
I am a cricket lover and wanted to be a cricketer.
I think Andrew Strauss never gets enough credit for what he’s done for English cricket.
Cricket is a team game. If you want fame for yourself, go play an individual game.
I resigned from captaincy because I wanted the new captain to get enough time for preparing a team before the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019.
I love cricket but I like being away from it as well.
I am happy that I am getting a chance to play for Hampshire, because wherever I play, at the end of the day, I am recognized as a Pakistani, and if I do well, it is Pakistan cricket that gets a good name.
West Indian people had made their greatest single cultural investment in cricket.
Test cricket tests your ability as a cricketer but also bring out your true character.
The thing about darts is that you’ve got to shout. It’s not like cricket where you can talk to Michael Atherton and ask him to analyse the bloody nuances. Darts does not have nuances. You’ve got to hurl yourself at it.
My biggest ambition, ever since I was a boy in Pakistan, has been to play cricket at the highest level. If I can do so for South Africa, I’ll give everything.
I still remember my quote from the 2007 World Cup, when I said scoring two threes was as good as hitting a six. That was me trying to justify what you couldn’t. To me, and this was before I became director of cricket, we just couldn’t do that again.
To be honest I wasn’t very good at football. I loved cricket and when I started making some big scores for my boys’ team, I dreamed of becoming the next Border.
Even a good batsman requires a year or so in test cricket to settle down and play long innings.
Whether that was in the Chepauk Stadium in Madras or at the Ilford Cricket School, there was a daily diet of cricket run by my dad. It was a hard school but he knew what he was doing. Everything I achieved was down to my dad.
I used to play a lot of cricket at the junior level. Then I did my engineering and got interested in singing and playing the guitar. Yes, I’m a musician. From music it was a step away from cinema.
Cricket was a splendid chapter of my life; indeed, it made me what I am today. However, cricket alone isn’t the only flavour of life. Sometimes, indeed, we tend to take sports too seriously and life too casually.
When you start the game, coaches will tell you to do stuff in a particular way, and kids do that. But the moment you start first-class cricket, the coach needs to tell you, ‘Try this, try that,’ instead of, ‘Do this, do that.’ If you feel comfortable, you can take it; otherwise, leave it.
I feel I have had a very interesting life, but I am rather hoping there is still more to come. I still haven’t captained the England cricket team, or sung at Carnegie Hall!
A lot of wasted energy in my life has been spent on sorting out problems and issues at Yorkshire cricket. Of course, I know I made mistakes along the way, but I care passionately about the club – I always have done and always will.
In professional cricket, everybody wants to win.
People need to take as much interest in other sports as they take in cricket, and that’s where we come across a vicious cycle of performance, sponsorship, recognition, jobs and TV visibility. It’s a typical chicken-and-egg story; each one is directly related to the other without an answer for what comes first.
It’s incredible what the Sydney Test has become – it’s now iconically the pink Sydney Test. It’s the sixth year that the McGrath Foundation has been involved and the support from everyone in cricket – right across the board, supporters, teams, you name it – has been absolutely incredible.
Whenever an opportunity comes to play ODI and T20I cricket, I will work hard and make it count.
I have made a few mistakes early on that I admit myself, and there have been times when I have gone over the top and done things that you shouldn’t do in international cricket, but that’s how you learn.
I know people madly in love with cricket; they got hurt, and they now should trust me only because I want to give back their love for cricket by performing. I want them to trust me because they lost something because of me, and I want to give back with my whole heart and soul.
Just as I have broken the monopoly of film music as being synonymous with popular music in our country, I want to prove that cricket is not the only glamorous sport.
South African cricket, we’re pretty resilient.
‘Kanaa’ is a rare opportunity; it’s about women’s cricket, and they’ve trusted me with this film. I trained for nearly four hours every day with three coaches.
Endless cricket, like endless anything else, simply grinds you down.
I don’t have a magic wand, and there is a lot we need to do right in Pakistan cricket to build a strong team.
Ultimately, DDCA is there to promote Delhi cricket. They are not there to promote themselves or set agendas. The primary job of DDCA is to look after cricket, see where Delhi cricket is going at all levels.
Test cricket is a different sort of cricket altogether. Some players who are good for one-day cricket may be a handicap in a Test match.
My captaincy model was characterised by two distinctive pillars. Proper identification of talent and then ensuring the young finds play fearless cricket.
I don’t mind a bit of cricket, but it has to be something massive like the Ashes.
There are fans of Twenty20 cricket, and we need to ensure that we give them the cricket they want to see. We need to keep Test cricket alive, because there is a section of fans who love and worship Test cricket and have basically helped this game grow, and they are as important as anybody else.
You’re always under pressure, that’s what life is about. That is what playing international cricket or being a professional sportsman is.
I believe my actual job is that of a mentor. I don’t just talk about bowling. I discuss batting, I discuss fielding, I discuss team selection, talking to every boy individually on and off the field, giving them confidence and if they are struggling with their cricket, talking to them about their cricket.
In tennis ball cricket, even it’s hit from the toe of the bat, the ball still travels a lot, but in normal cricket, it has to be the middle part of the bat, so it requires a lot of work.
There is a lot of talk about how Twenty20 has changed batting techniques in Test cricket. But it has also had an impact on bowling.
We all know just bowling won’t do in modern international cricket, and we have to contribute with the bat and as a fielder, too.
I have had to work really hard at white-ball cricket. It doesn’t come naturally to me, I was a slow batsman; I worked hard on my game and fitness.
In 2000 I became captain and stayed till 2005, and this was a very successful time in Indian cricket, so it was a satisfying tenure for me.
The biggest relief off my shoulders was when I retired from Test cricket and I knew I didn’t have to bowl 40 overs in a Test anymore.
Critics haven’t taught me my cricket, and they don’t know what my body and mind are up to.
You try to make sure you have respect for the opposition but still play to win and play hard cricket.
I want to give my six hours of serious cricket on the ground and then take whatever the result.
I played a lot of my early cricket in Haridwar and Dehradun. But I just had to come to Delhi if I had to make a career out of it.
Since my international debut in 2014 the miles on the clock have probably crept up and Test cricket is the level where the pressure and scrutiny are greatest.
Innovation grabs the attention. You go back through the history of cricket and there are certain moments in time that grab you. Kevin Pietersen’s flamingo shot was one of those.
I didn’t have to play rugby that well, and I didn’t have to play cricket that well, because I had this voice.
But, without a doubt, my favourite thing? It’s sitting in a change room like this after a match. There’s no time frame on how long you’ll sit there. There’s no formality. You’re just enjoying each other’s company, thinking about cricket.
They come with a lot of strategies in international cricket. You face bowlers with a lot more pace.
Had I not got into acting and modeling, I would have been a part of the national cricket team. I’m a right-handed batsman and a pace bowler and have won lots of awards during my college and school days.
I’ve always played sport. I played rugby, I was involved in athletics, I played cricket… I’m an outdoors kind of guy.
Drama happens in big cricket matches. But also in small cricket matches.
