We have to understand that the five-day format has its own uncertainties, unlike ODIs or T20s. In ODIs, you know that you have to field for 50 overs only, while in Test cricket, there may be a situation that a team might bat for one-and-a-half to two days.

If you don't perform, and you're part of the team, whether you're playing your first Test or 50th Test match, criticism goes hand in hand, so that's something you can't really get away from. If you don't perform, you will be criticised.

I think it is always a challenge when you go and play abroad. You are competing against the home team, and they know the conditions well. Their fast bowlers always know which length to bowl and also the areas in which they need to bowl.

Nobody really wants to bowl a bad over, but if it happens, the individual is more disappointed than anyone else in the stadium or the team. Ideally, it is best to leave him to this thoughts and then have a chat with him after the team is back at the hotel when he will be less frustrated and more accepting.

What we have seen is that sports is definitely developing in India. I can see a lot of positive things happening in India. It may take a bit more time, but with proper guidance and people having passion for sports, I don't think we are far away from becoming a good sporting nation.

I love being in the present. When I was playing for my school, the only thing I wanted to do was get selected for the under-16 or the under-19 district teams. When I was selected for the district, I would think about the next level, which was getting selected for the state side. I'm a person who lives very in the moment.

After one Olympics, if we invest in sports and say we will get a gold medal in the next Olympic, it doesn't work like that in sports. How it works is that you provide the infrastructure, provide education about nutrition and health.

You can't make three or four spinners bowl the exact number of overs. You don't see the number of overs bowled by them before you make a bowling change; you see who looks effective and make a bowling change.

Let me tell you, it is an absolute lie that I told a probe panel that Meiyappan was only a cricket enthusiast. All I said is he had nothing to do with the team's on-field cricketing decisions. I can't even pronounce the word 'enthusiast.'

You may earn whatever money you earn as a cricketer, but you want to play for your country. At the end of the day, you want to do something special. There are plenty of people who earn 50 crores or 100 crores as businessmen or big professionals or who are really doing well in business. But what gives pleasure to your mom and dad is the fame.

Till the 10th standard, I was quite good - I got 66% that year. After my 10th, I got really involved with cricket, so I didn't have any time to study. And my parents didn't push me, either, which was very good for me.

The biggest learning during my tenure as a captain was that, a lot of time, I used to think that this is common sense. But no, there is nothing called common sense.

Winning the World Cup was very special because it meant so much to so many. One thing about our country that is constant is cricket. The smile it brought to people's faces was the thing I shall always remember. It reminded me, reminded all of us, of our importance to the lives of the Indian people less lucky than we are.

If you play cricket for India, money is bound to come, and with IPL in and match money of the Ranjhi trophy, I think money is there. There's no good reason why you should not work hard, because at the end of the day, you want to play for your country.

my bikes - I have quite a few of them in Ranchi - spending some time with my family, my parents and friends. Going out for rides with my friends and having lunch or dinner at a roadside hotel - that's my favourite time-pass. These are the sort of things that really excite me.

I don't believe in calling someone and having a big chat, because that puts a lot of added pressure on them. If somebody is doing something or involved in fielding practice, then a little chit-chat at that time helps because it's informal and doesn't add any pressure.

If you are good at studies, and you want to play cricket, you may work harder than any other person, but you may not achieve it. So it's something you have to balance in life and be practical where you are good and then channelise your efforts in the right direction to be successful in life.

Sometimes in T20, you need to bowl only one over, and once the captain has given you that one over, irrespective of whether it is good or bad, that one over is out of the equation. That actually helps you, that one over. By the time the batsman figures out what you are trying to do, you get rid of one over.

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.