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.

Rahul Dravid

No dream is ever chased alone.

Rahul Dravid

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.

Rahul Dravid

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

Rahul Dravid

Sometimes fitness is a good thing to have, but you have to recognise that fitness takes you only so far, and skills are the most important thing. Fitness just helps you execute those cricketing skills for longer and more consistently, maybe.

Rahul Dravid

One of the great joys of being a slip fielder who takes a catch is you are able to contribute to the bowler's success. Yes, you are putting yourself in the firing line if you stuff it up, but you must want to be in that position to make a difference, and recognise sometimes that you might make mistakes. There are no easy catches in the slips.

Rahul Dravid

I wasn't the most prodigiously talented cricketer in Karnataka, let alone India. Some of my team-mates in my school team could hit the ball cleaner than I do. I had to work through that lack of talent, so to speak, that lack of natural flair. Runs never came easy for me.

Rahul Dravid

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.

Rahul Dravid

I have the kind of personality that I always look ahead than look at what's happened. It does help a lot, especially when you've done badly or you've failed. It's instinctive of me that I look at what's next, I look ahead a lot, and start preparing for that, in victory and in defeat.

Rahul Dravid

What drew me towards team sport were the camaraderie and friendship. The chance to celebrate victory and success with a group of other people is something I have enjoyed doing.

Rahul Dravid

I was lucky in my early years to play for a Karnataka team that was trying to forge itself into a strong side, and they were years of fun and learning. In the Indian team, I was fortunate to be part of a wonderful era when India played some of its finest cricket at home and abroad.

Rahul Dravid

Growing up, in my under-15 days I used to be a wicketkeeper, and that carried on till I was 17. Then I started focusing on my batting and moved on. I got into the Ranji team quite early, and generally, as a youngster, the first place you are put in is at bat-pad and short leg, so you had to work on your close-in fielding straightaway.

Rahul Dravid

Even though it's a shortened format of the game, Twenty20 allows people with different skills to play in a team and play their specific roles. Obviously there's not too much time to waste balls, but if you look at guys who play well in the top six, they have a fairly decent amount of good cricketing ability.

Rahul Dravid

There is an element of mystique to radio, and I often listen to cricket commentary on radio, especially when one is stuck in a traffic jam.

Rahul Dravid

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.

Rahul Dravid

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.

Rahul Dravid

There are so many fans and so many people who care deeply about this game, and it is because of these fans that we are who we are as cricketers.

Rahul Dravid

There is no substitute to taking a lot of a catches as a youngster if you want to do slip catching - you've got to catch, catch, catch. And more than doing the normal stuff, you have to vary your catching - you've got to take some catches with the tennis ball, you got to take some closer, some further away.

Rahul Dravid

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.

Rahul Dravid

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.

Rahul Dravid

Reading allows me to recharge my batteries.

Rahul Dravid