Rahul Dravid

“I am what I am. I have not deliberately built an image for myself.”

“In a cricket career, your life is in some ways controlled for you. You have no control over schedules, you have no control about where you want to play, you don't have control over that as a cricketer.”

“I thought about cricket a lot. I needed to get out of this bubble of mine. I found it in books and conversations with other people about other things. I was a curious person, and this was my release. I like being challenged intellectually. I hated at the end of the day to talk cricket to someone else.”

“From a spinner's perspective, in India it was never easy for me to judge where to stand: how far forward, how far back, because on Indian wickets the ball does not carry as much as abroad. That is true of slip fielding in general. I wouldn't say only for spinner - even for a fast bowler, that holds true.”

“I think credibility, irrespective of what you do, if you are in public life, then it is important.”

“The bowlers I respected or feared or rated were not the ones who gave me lip or stared at me or abused me. More the ones who, at any stage of the game, when had they had the ball in hand, they were going to be at me, and they were going to have the skill and the fitness and the ability to be aggressive.”

“I was given a talent to play cricket. I don't know why I was given it. But I was. I owe it to all those who wish it had been them to give of my best, every day.”

“You get an image in the first couple of years of your career, and then whether you like it or not, you are stuck with it for the rest of your life.”

“I don't get angry very often, but there have been times when I have been frustrated with myself, maybe after playing a bad shot, after getting out, I have done some damage to some equipment of mine. Once or twice in the course of 20 years - I think you can allow me that at least.”

“While I played Ranji Trophy for five years, I used to be asked, 'When are you playing for the nation?' - a question which I didn't have any answer to. I kept playing before I got my first break in 1996; those five years were indeed frustrating.”

“I think we judge talent wrong. What do we see as talent? I think I have made the same mistake myself. We judge talent by people's ability to strike a cricket ball. The sweetness, the timing. That's the only thing we see as talent. Things like determination, courage, discipline, temperament, these are also talent.”

“I was in the hockey team in school, played football. One of the challenges for me was to make the team feel better. It helped me evolve, so batting at different positions was never a problem.”

“I am not the only intense or intellectual cricketer. I played with other cricketers who could be pretty intense and intellectual.”

“My approach to cricket has been reasonably simple: it was about giving everything to the team, it was about playing with dignity and it was about upholding the spirit of the game. I hope I have done some of that. I have failed at times, but I have never stopped trying. It is why I leave with sadness but also with pride.”

“Reading allows me to recharge my batteries.”