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Cricket pays well, so a lot of people are naturally drawn towards the game. But to carve a niche in non-cricket sports is not easy. So state governments need to be proactive. Indians need to be made aware of the power of an Olympic medal. It should be treated at par with an Oscars or a Nobel Prize.

Outside the Olympics, there are massive discrepancies within all sports. But the positive side for me is that the Olympics are the biggest platform there is, and there's total equality across all sports.

Cricket, like all sport, offers glory to few and a lifetime of it to even fewer. For the investment it demands, it offers short careers that end when people in other professions are starting to flourish.

People need to take as much interest in other sports as they take in cricket, and that's where we come across a vicious cycle of performance, sponsorship, recognition, jobs and TV visibility. It's a typical chicken-and-egg story; each one is directly related to the other without an answer for what comes first.

Sport allows us to engage in dialogue and to build bridges, and it may even have the capacity to reshape international relations. The Olympic Games embody perfectly this universal mission.

I think if you're writing about cricket, you're obviously writing about power, because cricket is such a loaded sport, much more so than soccer.

I've always seen the Olympics as a place where you could act out your differences on the athletic field with a sense of sportsmanship and fairness and mutual respect.

The Olympics remain the most compelling search for excellence that exists in sport, and maybe in life itself.

I am just enjoying what cricket has given me. In sports, it's obviously really important for all of us to remain fit - and health is wealth, so health comes with the sport.

Isn't cricket supposed to be a team sport? I feel people should decide first whether cricket is a team game or an individual sport.