‘This (IPL) is champagne,other T20 leagues are soft drinks’

On West Indians in IPL

It’s nice to see them do well and it’s nice to also see them make good money. If I was their age and somebody said to me ‘here are 600000 dollars and come and play for six weeks’,I’d be there before anybody else. At the same time I think it’s going a little too far. It’s damaging the real cricket,but I’d do the same.

On upcoming Caribbean Premier League

That’s just another one. We have Sri Lanka,we have Bangladesh,you have the Big Bash and the IPL. A lot of people want to play the Caribbean T20. But nowhere there is money like this. This is champagne and that is soft drink.

On India minus Sachin,Sehwag,Gambhir & Yuvraj at CT

How does it matter? They still have a lot of batting. You don’t think these youngsters can bat? In England if the sun shines,they are not going to leave too much grass on the pitch. The wickets are not going to be like Test match pitches.

On Indian bowling

It’s ordinary. That’s all I can say. I’ve seen a few fast bowlers,who come in and bowl quick when they start,but they don’t last which is unfortunate. Something is going wrong. I don’t know if it’s the training or whatever. Look at Ishant Sharma. When he came in,he was quick. Now he’s no longer quick. He’s not the only one. I’ve seen it happen to quite a few others too. They are still good bowlers,but the pace is not there and they don’t create as much havoc as they should.

On too much science that goes into fast bowling

I was chatting with Sudhir Naik (Zaheer Khan’s coach) about all the theory that’s going into fast bowling and stuff like bio-mechanics and everything. They are still breaking down. There is too much theory. Going into the gym is great but some of them over do the gym. They need to do more running and less gym.

Gym is good. I went to the gym too,but you could never tell,because I never spent hours and hours there. I used to run though. And if you are a fast bowler,you have to run to get your legs in the right condition. There is too much emphasis on gym now. And what happens is they get big and powerful and don’t stretch enough and the slightest bit of stretching causes them to tear a muscle. Remember one thing,if you don’t have muscle,you can’t tear it.