Isa Guha Quotes

I have played quite a few Test matches in the back garden with my two brothers.

Growing up in Rochdale, I think, all the kids in my street, pretty much every boy was playing cricket. I had four brothers as well, and we played a lot together. When it was just me on my own, I was bowling at a drainpipe.

My grandma used to have a backyard and we put a hoop, a shaky hoop, up there. We used to just shoot at it. We shot at it so many times, we broke it. We had to get a better one, because that one wasn't good at all.

For me, football always meant that we came together as a family and, in the summer we played football outside.

I grew up in a house my parents built together on a mountain in Tennessee. When we moved in, the walls were still going up, we didn't have hot water, and we turned it into an amazing adventure.

I've got four brothers, so with them and all our friends we had these sports parties in the basement. We'd play basketball, mini-sticks, baseball in the backyard, football, whatever it was. We were busy 24/7.

I always appreciated my dad coming outside and playing with us - or my mom - and being a part of the game we were playing or refereeing it or just being outside. That was fun for us, and it was very encouraging.

I have time only for cricket, and when I am not playing, I love to be at home, chat with my family, do puja with them, call for some yummy paani puri, etc. Also I love to cook. I can make dal, sabji and chicken! But, at home everybody's a vegetarian, so I can't cook non-veg at home!

I have three younger siblings, so the four of us were outside all the time after school playing games, making up games. My sister made up a game called 'roof ball.' We'd play that constantly. She always beat me in it, and it made me very mad. But we were outside all the time.

As a child, I always enjoyed building forts by stringing up bed sheets and clothes. I continue to be inspired by makeshift structures, including my own kids' forts and temporary architecture of all sorts.

My dad talks about the times when we'd play backyard cricket: If I got bowled out, I'd just refuse to let go of the bat and swing it at anyone who tried to take it away from me. I like to think that's been tempered a bit over the years.

You know, when I was a young boy I used to play baseball in my back yard or in the street with my brothers or the neighborhood kids. We used broken bats and plastic golf balls and played for hours and hours.

My dad and my brother were more keen on football, but I used to play canvas-ball cricket while at school in Ranchi, and we would have cricket coaching camps in the summer vacations. That's how I started.

My grandma used to pitch to me. Hit rocks with a broomstick.

I've spent most of my life watching fast bowlers - initially as a kid on TV and later in the flesh when I started playing top-level cricket.

As a child in South Carolina, I spent summers like so many children - sitting on my grandparents' back porch with my siblings, spitting watermelon seeds into the garden or, even worse, swallowing them and trembling as my older brother and sister spoke of the vine that was probably already growing in my belly.

From the age of six I used to watch every England team and when I was messing around in the backyard I would pretend to be whoever was scoring runs at the time, whether they were a right or left-hander. I just wanted to be them and do that.

When the others grew tired and went home and there was no one else to play with I used to play my own Test matches on the porch of our house, using a broom handle or a stick as the bat and a marble as the ball. I would arrange the pot plants to represent fielders and try to find the gaps as I played my shots.

My earliest memories were in the back of my grandad's car listening to Test Match Special.

Lord's is a special place. I used to love watching games there as a youngster and I've been fortunate enough to play a couple of games there.

I watched 'Land of the Lost' as a kid, you know, incessantly. I loved it. Me and my brother watched it every Saturday.

I love playing in the Garden. My dad used to tell me stories about playing here. So to see that crowd, it's crazy.

I have great childhood memories of my mother baking, and I was always a willing participant, especially if it meant I could revarnish the kitchen floor with treacle.

People have been saying life will change for us now but me? No chance. I may be a World Cup winner but I will always be the lad who played cricket with his friends and cousins in the park on Stoney Lane in south Birmingham using an old milk crate for stumps.

A large part of my childhood was spent holding a cricket bat. The first time I picked one up was in the garden aged about six, and I've never really put the bat down since.