‘When it comes to playing for India, it’s like serving your country, so personal issues, I don’t really give any weightage’
“We have meetings, discussions regularly so clearly we have moved on. We can’t be living in the past. I’ve played for so many years, I don’t have an ego, or I don’t give attention to my personal likes and dislikes. I’ve never done that,” Raj told PTI from Mumbai where she is quarantining along with the rest of the squad ahead of their departure to the UK on June 3.
“And 21 years has been a long time for me to sort of, you know, go through many challenges. When it comes to playing for India, it’s like serving your country, so personal issues, I don’t really give any weightage.”
“You need to think about the bigger picture. That’s how I am,” Raj said when asked of their working relationship with Powar going forward. “There are so many things that have happened in the past, but I don’t carry that baggage into my present or in the future.
“He is the coach, and he has his set of plans, it’s important that both of us are aligned on the same page to take the team forward. Because even his goal is the same: that the team does well in the World Cup. It’s everybody’s goal in the team.”
“We can’t be bitter and carry the bitterness,” she said. “I’ve never been a confrontational person, nor am I someone who carries the past into present. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have survived for so long in a sport, which clearly needs re-inventions and revisions all the time. It’s important that we are on the same page and take the team along, because we are at a very crucial phase of our preparation for the World Cup.”
“I think sometimes it’s good to not get into game with the baggage of expectations, as in like most of them are making their debut and some of us are playing after a long gap,” she said. “It is great that BCCI is trying to organise Test matches in a bilateral series, because I believe that every player around the world would want to play more games. And it’s every player’s dream to don the whites at some point, because it’s the oldest format of the sport.
“We also have continuity. We play another Test in Australia, and it is going to be a historical one for the Indian team because it will be the first time that you’re playing a day-night Test, that too at the WACA (Perth). I am sure we will get enough practice with the pink ball before that.”