As far as I am concerned, I have never seen any Indian batsman perform better than Virat on Australian soil keeping Sachin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman in mind as they have done exceptionally well.
— Ravi Shastri
We play every game to win and take the game forward. And if in trying to win we lose a game, tough luck.
It's not worth scoring thousands of runs if your team keeps on losing.
Aggressive cricket is a form of cricket where you play to win.
The World Cup has its own space that needs to be respected.
How do you pick players? When they are good, and Dhoni is the best limited-overs keeper in the country.
You know, when a fast bowler comes back after a series of five Test matches and then straightaway has to go into a one-day series with a three-day break, a T20 series with a one-day break, it is tough.
Half the guys commenting on MS Dhoni can't even tie their shoelaces.
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.
Sometimes in cricket nothing is automatic; when automatic fails you need some fuel.
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.
I was a very determined cricketer. I treated the opening position as a challenge. Big names and tough attacks brought the best out of me.
I always considered myself an allrounder.
Fearless means trusting your instincts and clarity of thought. Once you have made up your mind, don't be scared of what if.
Sometimes acknowledging your erroneous ways is the first step to redemption.
We all know the soil in western India has a reddish tinge. In cricketing parlance it means a ticket to party for the spinners at the start and end of a cricket season.
I love coverage, bring it on, as simple as that.
When you have seven to eight players performing game after game, you are on an absolute roll.
I have been manager, director, now I am head coach, and it's the same role. Absolutely the same role.
India has given too much emphasis on players' records than on the actual performance of the team.
You don't come to a cricket ground to draw a cricket match.
Dhoni is a superstar. He is one of our greatest cricketers. When you have a career as glorious as that, you become a topic on television.
MS Dhoni is a massive influence on the team. He is a living legend in the dressing room and an ornament to the game.
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.
A coach's role, effectively speaking, is to stay in the background and let the onus be on the players.
We live life in the present.
As long as we know the job we are doing and we are honest to our jobs, as long as support staff we are helping players channelise their energies in the right direction, we are not worried about what critics say.
As a child I played cricket as a hobby. Once you started playing for your school, you became more ambitious. You reckoned you could play for the state. Then you started to think about the country. But it happened so quickly for me, I started playing for the school at 13, for Bombay at 17, and at 18 I was in the Indian side.
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.
I am more into fine-tuning, mindsets, and how you play the game. Very rarely will I go and tinker with a player unless I think it is needed.
You can't sideline players who can take a good helping for themselves in the Power Plays.
We have to do what's best for the team, as simple as that.
As long as we win more than we lose, we are happy.
If you have the leader under pressure always go for him. You need to get stuck in. You have to make the game as tough as you can.
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.
When you are watching a cricket match, and a side is 140 for 5 and another 100 plus to get in trying conditions and when you get that without losing a wicket, not only is that entertainment, it shows all the qualities a sportsperson should have to reach the top level.
There are a few people who are waiting to see the end of MS Dhoni. But great players like him decide their own future.
It's going to get harder and harder to find guys who will play for ten years in all formats of the game, and whoever does it, good luck to him - he'll be a great batsman or bowler.
The classical art of spin bowling, how you should bowl in Test match cricket, is disappearing.
It's always the captain's team and it is the leader who calls the shots.
It's not that every time India play they will have their best team on the park because there are bound to be injuries and other factors.
There's never been a weak South African or Australian team. They are fighters.
I am a winner, man.
My batting took some time to develop - I was batting at No. 10 initially but my bowling took off.
The job satisfaction that an opener gets no other batsman gets.
Virat Kohli and MS Dhoni, the respect they have for each other is unbelievable, so it makes my job in the dressing room so much easier.
Sometimes wisdom comes to us when it can no longer do any good.
Responsibility and accountability has to be taken by the top order.
