The concluding part of an interview to Shekhar Gupta, Editor-in-Chief, The Indian Express, on NDTV 24X7:

You have spoken of Sehwag being at the other end. How much does the batsman at the other end influence your batting?

Sometimes it does. You are in certain zones when you bat. Sometimes, you feel, ‘I am going to be patient today because the bowler’s bowling well, or I am not getting my rhythm. I just got to wait till I get back my rhythm. Sometimes, you feel fine, everything’s going well, but you want to do something more. You have just hit a beautiful cover drive, but you want to do something else. You want to slice it, play a flick from there.

Is there pressure? For example, someone like Sehwag, say, Dhoni now, in a partnership… and you are a dominating batsman, you find the other guy is scoring very fast, and they can afford to take more chances than you...Does it cause a little issue ... in a partnership of 80, this guy’s got 55, so I should catch up.

Not really, no. I think each player has a different role to play and you play accordingly. It really doesn’t matter whether it is Sehwag, Yuvraj, Dhoni or Dravid. Eventually, what we both contribute as a pair is important. And each player at different stages of life is going to play different roles. Earlier, when I used to bat with Shastri or Azhar or Sidhu, whatever, I used to play a different role at that time and the senior cricketers used to play a different role. Now that I am the seniormost cricketer here in the team, I need to play a different role.

... contd.