What is important for me is playing cricket and not thinking about how my Test career is shaping up. I am not into future planning and all. I am concerned about my present and not the future.

My job is to perform, enjoy cricket and thank God for whatever he has given me.

I never have issues in handling the fame. I was in a boarding school, as I am from a middle-class family. We didn't have a lot of money, so we all learned to respect money and understood its real value.

I am not brand conscious. I wear what suits me.

My father had a brilliant scholastic record in high school and was awarded a college scholarship. Unfortunately he had to turn it down so that he could continue to support his family.

As I was growing up, all meals, including breakfast, were family occasions, and you all sat down to eat together - and you had to finish everything as well.

I hated being typecast in those roles. It was personally limiting, only playing stereotyped heavies. But I got those roles because I was angry, because that's what I projected. I was angry at my mother and father because they didn't get along, angry at the church. On top of that, I had an extreme lack of self-confidence.

I've been writing an ongoing letter to my children since they were born, full of recollections of their childhoods. I've filled two journals. It's a great thing to do as a mother - you forget a lot as you go along, but reading over what you've written brings all the memories back.