Ravi Shastri

“In a side when you have 15 players there will always be times when there will be opinions that will be different. That is what is needed.”

“I have little patience or time for nonsense that's spread around.”

“When you are asked to open the batting in overcast conditions, it is a challenge.”

“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.”

“India has given too much emphasis on players' records than on the actual performance of the team.”

“Half the guys commenting on MS Dhoni can't even tie their shoelaces.”

“The boss is the captain on the cricket field. I am in charge of the coaching staff. That's put into place. My job is to oversee things and see things go all right. Who cares who's the boss? At the end of the day, you win and to hell with it, yaar.”

“You've got to nip things that can be detrimental in the bud, even if this raises a few eyebrows or invites some opposition.”

“Let me say this: MS Dhoni has earned the right to retire when he wants to.”

“Take up a challenge and treat it as an opportunity. Once you do that and succeed, all you want in life is more such opportunities.”

“We are a country obsessed by records. For us, hundreds, ten thousand runs, and large haul of wickets are more important than the performance of the Indian team.”

“As an opener, your mindset has to be different. When you need to open in Tests, you might get out in the first 10 balls.”

“The coach and support staff's role is to get the players in the most brilliant frame of mind to execute things and if done effectively, it brings enjoyment to the player's game.”

“I don't want everyone toeing the same line. You have got to have discussions and someone might then think of a fresh strategy, which has to be encouraged.”

“My job is to do exactly that with every player - to put him in a frame of mind where he is thinking only about his role and he is thinking about the team he is playing for and, of course, the opposition which we always respect.”

“What my endeavour is to see a happy Indian team playing cricket.”

“I believe that tours should be only three Tests. With the amount of these things that is taking place, you will find that once you go for five-Test match series, 80-90% of the times the home team will win and you will see teams going straight down after the third match.”

“You have to look at youth in whatever you do, in whatever walk of life at some stage.”

“Opening for the first time in Test cricket, I scored 128 against the likes of Sarfraz Nawaz and Imran Khan.”

“Once you have a good bowling attack that can take 20 wickets anywhere, then no game is an away game. Every game is a home game. It doesn't matter what the pitch is, you have the ammunition.”