Abhinav Bindra Quotes

IT’S NOT EVERY FOUR YEARS. IT’S EVERY DAY.

Often, and sadly, we go blind to this in sport. We see the competitors, but not who they lean on. We miss the parents putting child before job and ferrying kids to obscure destinations for tennis events across India; we miss the mothers sitting patiently beside pools as a daughter cuts quietly through the water for hours; we miss the fathers religiously dropping off sons for cricket nets before work and after on their Bajaj scooters. They wait for, and on, us.

I admire Rahul Dravid for separate reasons. He is more soldier than artist, he bats unhurriedly but with the stubbornness of a priest whose faith is being challenged. He is a self-confessed cricketer of certain limitations, but his overcoming of them, his compensations for them, these victorious battles he has with himself, are astonishing. The signature of his greatness is commitment and a parallel is to be found an ocean away in Australia. Steve Waugh was as clever, he knew how to summon the best in himself. These men were creatures of routine. So am I. ‘Soldiering on’ is our phrase.