Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I sort of felt like the runt of the litter. My brother was just great. If you gave him a cricket bat he'd score 100. If he walked into a party he'd pull the best-looking girl. He was my hero.
A lot has evolved and changed in women's sport in the last 10 years - particularly football and cricket. So, I think my timing, in terms of being able to play both for a while, was fortunate.
I made tons of runs and got an opportunity to play for Mumbai. Suddenly, people knew who I was, and the cameras were on me. Getting the recognition matters when you are playing school cricket.
Throughout my career, in cricket and beyond, I've been incredibly lucky with my marriage. I met Rachael in 2002, and that was the year my England career kicked on. Everything started to click.
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.
When I am off the field, I am the calm, very quiet kind of easy-sailing ocean, and then when I am on a hot streak with a cricket ball, I can be the most disastrous waters you have ever been in.
My father died in 1930, but if you told him or anybody almost in that time that you'd be able to sit back in England and watch a cricket game in Australia, they'd have you put in the loony bin.
Representing England has always been a privilege and my decision to take a break from Test cricket at the end of the home summer was made to ensure that, hopefully, I can do it for a lot longer.
There has been a positive change with people being aware about women's cricket of late. It's still far from what it needs to be, but women are slowly getting the right recognition for this game.
Part of the reason I fell in love with cricket was watching fast bowlers. They provide a sense of theatre with dramatic, ferocious spells and that applies as much in one-day cricket as in Tests.
The only thing I'd say about Darrell Hair is that he is a very good umpire. He's very firm and he obviously sticks to his guns. I wouldn't have any qualms about him coming back into Test cricket.
You need different skills to do well in 50-overs cricket. You need completely different skills to do well in Test cricket. You need different skills to do well in T20 cricket. It is not the same.
The problem is there's still a big kid inside me who likes to have fun. I am passionate about my cricket and I love my family, but I'm also a kid and maybe I need to grow up... And maybe I don't.
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.
People make mistakes along the way. Cricket means I may not always be there for everyone all the time. But when I take the field for my country, I know there are a lot of people I am representing.
Unfortunately, wrestling in India doesn't have the same appeal for the youth that cricket and football do. For this reason, I want to also begin a series of wrestling academies across the country.
I used to play a lot of cricket at the junior level. Then I did my engineering and got interested in singing and playing the guitar. Yes, I'm a musician. From music it was a step away from cinema.
I feel maybe at times I've just been a bit too desperate to do well, almost tried too hard. But even though I haven't contributed as I would have liked, I've still enjoyed the cricket just as much.
There's a voice inside children that knows right from wrong. I call it listening to your inner Jiminy Cricket. I tell my daughter, 'If you're thinking this is not the best idea, it probably isn't.'
It's not that I don't like cricket. I have played first class cricket and represented Delhi in the Ranji Trophy as a spinner, but at the same time my inclination to become an actor was very strong.
T20 in international cricket can almost be paid lip-service at times, with one game tagged on to the end of an ODI series or a long tour - sometimes it can feel like there is no point in playing it.
I and Virat have played cricket when we were youngsters back in Delhi. We were about 12 then. He had that spark in him and we knew he would play for India one day. He was a very good player then too.
People say I inherited my feisty attitude on the cricket pitch from my dad, but he and I might disagree. The most useful trait I've inherited from my mother is to make sure that I'm always organised.
As part of the England women's cricket team, we had our own rickety period at the end of 2005 through to the beginning of 2007. Learning from our mistakes, by 2009 we were the best team in the world.
When I was 21, I did not have that much pressure. I was sitting down on the bench... you know... cleaning Sir Vivian Richards's boots or doing something... getting ready to play international cricket.
When I first started playing international cricket, people around me started telling me what was being said. And you're never as good as anybody says you are. I try to stay quite logical about things.
I have some goals I'm looking to achieve, and one thing is to help the team win and move back up the ladder. This is vitally important to the team overall and to the supporters of West Indies cricket.
My brother shaved a cricket bat out of a coconut branch... we played cricket with anything we put our hands on - a hard orange, a lime, a marble - anything we could use in the backyard or the streets.
Money wasn't the motivating factor in calling time on my international career and focusing on T20 cricket. If I was here to make as much money as I can, I would be playing 10 to 12 tournaments a year.
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.
My childhood was a happy one. I was captain of the school sports team and played cricket after class. I had five younger siblings and a large loving family that lived together. We are still very close.
It has been an honour to represent Pakistan in the pinnacle and traditional format of the game. I, however, have decided to move away from the longer version so I can concentrate on white ball cricket.
From playing cricket in a boys team I had to learn quite quickly how to handle them and I've always felt quite comfortable in that environment. Because I feel comfortable, I'd like to think they do too.
Laziness isn't merely a physical phenomenon,about being a couch potato,stuffing your face with fries and watching cricket all day. It's a mental thing, too, and that's the part I have never aspired for.
I've always felt that when I've been successful in red-ball cricket it has been because I've left the ball well and sometimes in cricket the shots you don't play are more important than the ones you do.
One-day cricket is about aggression and flair, but Test cricket is a different ball game. One has to struggle through the hard periods initially and then look on to get a respectable score on the board.
Had I not got into acting and modeling, I would have been a part of the national cricket team. I'm a right-handed batsman and a pace bowler and have won lots of awards during my college and school days.
I first got into cricket by watching Test matches on TV and listening to overseas tours on the radio. The sport really grabbed me - and it didn't matter that England weren't hugely successful back then.
I have made a few mistakes early on that I admit myself, and there have been times when I have gone over the top and done things that you shouldn't do in international cricket, but that's how you learn.
Cricket, like all sport, offers glory to few and a lifetime of it to even fewer. For the investment it demands, it offers short careers that end when people in other professions are starting to flourish.
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.
My dad and my brother were more keen on football, but I used to play canvas-ball cricket while at school in Ranchi, and we would have cricket coaching camps in the summer vacations. That's how I started.
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.
I am happy that I am getting a chance to play for Hampshire, because wherever I play, at the end of the day, I am recognized as a Pakistani, and if I do well, it is Pakistan cricket that gets a good name.
I played my first game of adult cricket at about eight or nine when the fifth team were short and picked me to field and bat at No 11. From then I just got the bug and wanted to play as often as possible.
Opening the batting in Test cricket, facing up to fast bowlers looking to do their worst with a new, hard ball is incredibly tough. You have to be brave, single-minded and prepared to work very, very hard.
This is Test cricket. Being positive is not far away from being reckless. For all that the sport has become more fast-flowing and entertaining, you still need batsmen whose first instinct is to be patient.
For its health, cricket needs to look outward to the sharpest minds, to people who sustain and nurture brands and often take hard but necessary decisions. Cricket cannot be bound by cricketing minds alone.
After my dismissal, I received nothing in writing from Cricket Australia, no contact, and no payment at all, not even of my basic leave pay, until I was forced to bring in lawyers to assist in the process.
The cricket team has been great. There's never a lonesome moment. If you are struggling, there are 10 girls who can help you out and get you through the tough times. We can enjoy the ups and downs together.