Even if my grandchildren don’t remember the fact that I scored 10,000 runs in Test and ODI cricket, I am confident that they will remember that Sachin Tendulkar used to be my team-mate.

Tendulkar must have known from his heart

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.

I have failed at times, but I have never stopped trying.

I am not the only intense or intellectual cricketer. I played with other cricketers who could be pretty intense and intellectual.

You get an image in the first couple of years of your career, and then whether you like it or not, you are stuck with it for the rest of your life.

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.