Quotes from Sourav Ganguly

I love playing England. The teas at Lord's are good quality.

They say with age your reflexes slow down. I've not felt it.

The selection rules are the same for everybody. I am trying to make a comeback just like some other players who got dropped after the Pakistan tour. I hope my time will come.

We Indians react under pressure.

As much as you learn to handle failure, you must learn to handle success too, because that's also important.

With high-profile jobs, comes pressure and competition.

In 1992, I was part of the Test team and played the Tri-series too. But, I missed the World Cup after being left out of the squad since I was fairly young.

Ravindra Jadeja should not be in the World Cup team.

I played my first World Cup game against South Africa where I scored 97 runs before being run-out by Jonty Rhodes.

You don't want to turn up like a Nepal or an Ireland where the entire world thinks that you're not going to win. You rather turn up like an India or an Australia or an England where everybody says this team is going to win the World Cup.

In 2000 I became captain and stayed till 2005, and this was a very successful time in Indian cricket, so it was a satisfying tenure for me.

But obviously captaincy is a long process. It takes its toll as time goes on.

I have lot of hopes from Virat Kohli and nation believes in him.

I didn't have a good time with Lancashire in 2000. Probably I'd played too much cricket and should have taken a rest, but I went there when the offer came because I had always had an ambition to play the county game in England. And I was a bit jaded. And I didn't do myself justice. I want to put that right before I finish my career.

When I was captain, John Wright was making all the decisions and I followed like an obedient student.

India, Pakistan series has always been decided by the government. We toured in 2003-04 when I was the captain and it was for the first time since 1989-90 that we toured Pakistan. There were times even in those days when the series was planned but would get cancelled. So you have to leave it to the government.

In world cricket, I think Joe Root is a fine captain.

As captain you're involved immensely. You get worked up, you get carried away. It slowly dies down once you're a player. You realise you've to take the back seat.

When you play cricket for India, you are always under the scanner. You are always judged by others; you have to live up to it all.

I wanted to take away the fear of failure from the youngsters because when I came into the Indian team I faced that pressure.

My first trip as a captain against Pakistan in 2003 - we had never won there before, but then we won both the Test Matches and One-Days.

I cherish my entire life. I've been blessed with a life full of good memories.

When I first became captain of the Indian cricket team in 2000, many well-wishers and journalist friends gifted me the classic Mike Brearley book, 'The Art of Captaincy.' I mean no disrespect to the book or Mr, Brearley, who I admire a great deal, but books or team meetings don't make you good captains.

You can't be chasing 338 and still have 5 wickets in the end. It's about mindset and the way you look at the game.