International cricket and Test cricket in particular is hard and you are going to get injuries but, if you've got a strong pool of players to pick from who can all come in and do a job, well that can only be a good thing for English cricket.
I want to improve cricket at the district level because lot of hardworking players come from districts. We have produced so many great players, but now we don't have players in the Indian team. My intention is to work hard for the game of cricket.
Since my re-entry into cricket as the president of the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association, I have given my 100 percent.
You wouldn't see those sorts of decisions given in village cricket, let alone Test cricket. The England players have my sympathy.
I love cricket and am the last person who would get involved in something like spot-fixing. Anyone who knows me will think twice before coming to me with such an offer. Because I don't even listen to the captain before I play a match. I wouldn't agree to do it even for Rs 100 crore.
The contribution of Anthony William Greig to English cricket has been underestimated because of his allegiance to Kerry Packer and his choice to recruit players for World Series Cricket while still the England captain. His critics hold that as a black mark against him, which rules out anything else he may have done.
I used to always rock a cap when I was in high school and get them taken away. It was an excessive amount. Like, so often that, at the end of each school year, there would be a box of all the confiscated caps. After they gave back a few caps to other kids, they would just give me the box because the rest were all my hats.
Cricket has given me everything. If I'm anything today, it is because of the game... where I have given blood, sweat, and tears.
107 caps isn't bad for someone who isn't 'a top, top player', is it? I never expected to get that amount of caps. When I made my debut, I set myself the personal target of trying to get 50 caps and score 10 goals if I could. So to have 107 is something I am really proud of, particularly being among those names.
I don't see myself as a father figure but as someone who the younger players can come to and talk to about cricket. Not just batting but cricket in general and I am ready to impart with any information or advice I have.
Of course, United have always bought brilliant players. But you see Marcus Rashford and Jesse Lingard, who have come through the ranks, and before them Scholesy, Giggsy and Becks, who were given a chance to develop as players.
When I was a child, I got an opportunity to see all the big players in a cricket match. I was a ball boy outside the boundary line. I picked the ball and waited a bit for Sachin Tendulkar to come near me to give it to him. The sense of being in the same space was special. While thousands were watching, I was close to Sachin.
I see a tough time for our cricket. Senior players will establish records and go home, but our cricket will struggle. Young players aren't playing with the freedom that they should enjoy. The selectors and the cricket board should take responsibility for that.
It is nothing new for the management of an international cricket team to wrestle with the amount of freedom afforded to players.
I do feel that scripts get developed now to a point where they're sort of actor-proof. If the actor is not very good, the narrative still survives because it's all in the dialogue. Not to say there aren't great performances in English-language films, because there are every year, but the 1970s were awash with great performances, and I was wondering whether it had to do with the amount of space and the amount of responsibility given to the actors.
English players are as easy to coach. The problem is that the Premier League has the best players in the world, and statistically not all of them can be born in England. But we don't have enough English players: we are working very hard on it.