I have always believed that process is more important than results.
MS Dhoni
I have three dogs at home. Even after losing a series or winning a series, they treat me the same way.
If you don't really have a dream, you can't really push yourself; you don't really know what the target is.
Cricket is not everything, not by any means, but it is a large part of who I am.
It's important to learn and not repeat the same mistakes. What's done is done.
I believe in giving more than 100% on the field, and I don't really worry about the result if there's great commitment on the field. That's victory for me.
Self-confidence has always been one of my good qualities. I am always very confident. It is in my nature to be confident, to be aggressive. And it applies in my batting as well as wicketkeeping.
You learn a lot more when you're going through a rough period compared to the good times when everything goes your way.
Going out for rides with my friends and having lunch or dinner at a roadside hotel - that's my favourite time-pass.
I live in the present with an eye on the future.
I don't study cricket too much. Whatever I have learned or experienced is through cricket I've played on the field, and whatever little I have watched.
Finishing is one of the most difficult things to do in cricket. A player can't be a finisher in just 6 months or one year. You have to be used to that responsibility, keeping on doing what is required from you over a period of time.
I am in the hands of Deori Maa. Every time I come to Ranchi, I visit her temple. I still remember my first visit.
I never allow myself to be pressured.
You may earn whatever money you earn as a cricketer, but you want to play for your country. At the end of the day, you want to do something special. There are plenty of people who earn 50 crores or 100 crores as businessmen or big professionals or who are really doing well in business. But what gives pleasure to your mom and dad is the fame.
I tell my wife she is only the third most important thing after my country and my parents, in that order.
My wife wants me to eat fish; she says it is delicious. But I don't like fish, so that is that.
Please criticize me, but how can you accuse me of something like fixing a cricket game after all that the game has given me.
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.
For me, it's important to build good partnerships rather than score centuries. Once, you have those partnerships, you will also get centuries.
I used to play a lot of tennis-ball cricket.
Winning the World Cup was very special because it meant so much to so many. One thing about our country that is constant is cricket. The smile it brought to people's faces was the thing I shall always remember. It reminded me, reminded all of us, of our importance to the lives of the Indian people less lucky than we are.
In tennis ball cricket, even it's hit from the toe of the bat, the ball still travels a lot, but in normal cricket, it has to be the middle part of the bat, so it requires a lot of work.
I love to be in the moment. I love to analyse things a bit.
When people talk about South Africa, it's all about lions and elephants. But when we talk about India, we talk about tigers.
Nobody really wants to bowl a bad over, but if it happens, the individual is more disappointed than anyone else in the stadium or the team. Ideally, it is best to leave him to this thoughts and then have a chat with him after the team is back at the hotel when he will be less frustrated and more accepting.
One of my theories is to be captain on the field and off the field, you need to totally enjoy each other's company. I don't like discussing cricket off the field.
If you're playing against an aggressive side, you need to play an aggressive game.
If you have forest, if you have green forest, the water table goes up. What happens with deforestation is the water level goes down and we all know how much importance drinking water has.
I have formed the Mahendra Singh Dhoni Charitable Trust which organises cricket tournaments in Jharkhand to identify promising cricketers so that we can help groom them, either in India or abroad.
If you are good at studies, and you want to play cricket, you may work harder than any other person, but you may not achieve it. So it's something you have to balance in life and be practical where you are good and then channelise your efforts in the right direction to be successful in life.
If you don't perform, and you're part of the team, whether you're playing your first Test or 50th Test match, criticism goes hand in hand, so that's something you can't really get away from. If you don't perform, you will be criticised.
For me, opposition is just another opposition.
Let me tell you, it is an absolute lie that I told a probe panel that Meiyappan was only a cricket enthusiast. All I said is he had nothing to do with the team's on-field cricketing decisions. I can't even pronounce the word 'enthusiast.'
Gut feeling is all about the experiences that you have had in your life. It is about being in difficult scenarios, knowing what worked, what did not work, and then taking a decision.
I never thought of playing for any other franchise other than CSK. Chennai is my second home. Fans here have adopted me as one of their own.
Maybe because I bat aggressively and go for big hits at times, people tend to remember my batting. But I have always done well as a stumper, too.
You can't make three or four spinners bowl the exact number of overs. You don't see the number of overs bowled by them before you make a bowling change; you see who looks effective and make a bowling change.
A lot of things have changed since I made my debut in 2004. The way cricket is played has changed. The kind of players that are coming in the Indian team are drastically different than what we were used to. My role is quite the same. You only evolve with time, and that's what I am trying to do.
I am always the one who is responsible for anything bad that happens in Indian cricket. Everything that happens is because of me.
The biggest problem is when a player asks a captain why he is not playing but does not want an honest answer.
I love being in the present. When I was playing for my school, the only thing I wanted to do was get selected for the under-16 or the under-19 district teams. When I was selected for the district, I would think about the next level, which was getting selected for the state side. I'm a person who lives very in the moment.
The era of playing aggressive cricket and to have the mid-on up is gone. You now try to read the mindset of a batsman.
Getting up quite late in the morning, going and trying to clean my bikes - I have quite a few of them in Ranchi - spending some time with my family, my parents and friends. Going out for rides with my friends and having lunch or dinner at a roadside hotel - that's my favourite time-pass. These are the sort of things that really excite me.
Spirit of cricket is not about just the guidelines provided.
I don't think I will ever make my all-time greatest India team. You cannot compare one era with another, as they will be different.
India-Pakistan matches always capture the imagination of people from either side.
You need more individuals who can do more than one job in the field. Especially if all of them are good fielders and if they can contribute with bat and ball if needed. Just adds to the strength of the side.
I have faced challenges during the initial stages of my career, and I see Run Adam as filling a vacuum.
Unless you know the individual, it's very difficult to advise that individual as to what he needs to do.
