Brian Lara

“It's an honour to captain the West Indies.”

“I don't play politics.”

“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.”

“We had thousands of people outside Queen's Park Oval in Trinidad. We would wait to get inside to watch a Test at six o'clock in the morning.”

“I want to be a consistent individual. I want to be someone my team can depend on all the time.”

“There are always going to be critics. But I have got to go out there and do my job.”

“In cricket, you should keep your wrist as straight as possible, unlike golf.”

“I would like to be remembered as someone who came out there and tried to entertain.”

“Even I lost a series of Test matches as skipper.”

“The most unfortunate thing in cricket is not achieving what I set out to do from the very beginning: to be a part of a successful team over a long period of time. I had a little taste of it when I started in 1989, and up till 1995.”

“After cricket I'd love to build a family, I'd love to get close to someone and have kids, see them evolve into something special.”

“I don't think there is any 16-year-old who is going to embark on the sort of career that Sachin Tendulkar has had and walk away from the game at 40 with such great achievements. He's the Muhammad Ali and the Michael Jordan of cricket.”

“I had some bad influences in my time and, if my parents weren't there to straighten me out, things might have gone haywire.”

“I really enjoyed the period in which I played my cricket. I can look back now and wish I started 10 years later and played in the T20s. But I also wish I was born 10 years earlier so that I could have been part of the all-conquering West Indies team of that time.”

“I'm not much of a sports fan.”

“People point fingers at the leader. That happens in every sport.”

“It's good to have young players around you.”

“Attacking players are the ones who are best suited to break a record.”

“When I wasn't doing well, I was too tough on myself but I truly tried to minimise it. So, I would always appreciate the fact that, things are not going to go well all the time.”

“We West Indian cricketers are always proud to play for the West Indies and we know we are made up of different islands and different cultures but we have to be able to mesh together, to come together and perform as a team.”