Cricket was deemed too posh where I came from, and I'd never have risked walking home through the estates in my whites. My club played some of the posh schools. I'd have the cheapest kit, but I loved those games. As soon as the posh lads opened their mouths and you heard their accents, the stakes were raised.
The family farm plays such a big part in my life and I genuinely love going back there. In some ways I'd like to spend every day there, but there would be a big hole in my life if I didn't stay involved in cricket.
My parents were proud of the fact that I was playing cricket, they used to ferry me around during the weekends to play the game.
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.
Please criticize me, but how can you accuse me of something like fixing a cricket game after all that the game has given me.
We have to understand that the five-day format has its own uncertainties, unlike ODIs or T20s. In ODIs, you know that you have to field for 50 overs only, while in Test cricket, there may be a situation that a team might bat for one-and-a-half to two days.
Cricket is not everything, not by any means, but it is a large part of who I am. Therefore, I want to play in all formats of the game and to play as much as possible because, before long, it will be over.
Nothing happens in cricket, ever. Even the highlights resemble a freeze frame.
To represent your country is the ultimate honour, and to play Test cricket for India will be the ultimate fulfilment of my cricketing ambition.
Everyone who moves to New York City has a book or movie or song that epitomizes the place for them. For me, it's 'The Cricket in Times Square', written by George Selden and illustrated by Garth Williams.
Geez, I just played cricket because I loved the game. I never thought about it much, never really had any formal coaching.
I have this magpie instinct for the next glittering object. There are one or two things I know I can't write about, though: DIY, cricket, automobile repair. I could study it for a lifetime and not produce a word on the carburettor.
I know when I've been playing a lot of golf it takes me a while to get back into cricket again. It's not so much the different shape of the swings, more the fact that you are stationary when you hit a golf ball. In cricket you have to move forward or back, which is an instinctive timing thing.
Every night, I say goodnight to the kids like Rajesh Khanna, muah muah, two kisses, say goodnight to my wife, and every night, I'd go to the recreation room and watch cricket with two old men.
Spirit of cricket is not about just the guidelines provided.
I was brought up to always see the glass half full instead of half empty and played my cricket that way.
When I was young, I was supposed to study in the afternoon, and 4 - 5:30 P.M. was playtime. The entire day would revolve around that time. We would play anything - kabaddi, cricket. Those one and half hours would feel like 5 minutes.
Sometimes when you are playing non-stop international cricket in all formats - which was the case with Jadeja - you do well one day, get hammered the next, and immediately the spotlight is on you. That eats into you.
Cricket is my life. Before the cancer, I was happy-go-lucky. I used to think about my career and worry about the future. But post it, my thinking has completely changed. I'm happy to eat and breathe normally. I'm happy to have my life back.
It was always a dream to play Test cricket and get a first five-wicket haul over here.
