Competitive Decline Quotes

When my ban was relaxed I began playing club cricket. Imagine, for a person who had played at Lord's, to play with a club team who didn't have proper kit against another club team in Lahore.

We cannot continue to have an excellence gap with the rest of the world and intend to remain the [economic superpower] and [military superpower] of the planet. That's just not going to happen. We're in a position where unless we take action, we'll end up being the [France] of the 21st century: a lot of talk, but not a lot of strength behind it in terms of economic capability.

If I was 30th in points and not making races and not being competitive in races, I could understand them saying I'm over-the-hill or I'm ready to quit or whatever.

Snooker has taken such a step down I am not sure it will recover unless five Ronnie O'Sullivans come along at the same time.

I was never great, but I was a good [basketball] player, and I could play seriously. Now I'm like one of these old guys who's running around, and the guys I play with, who are all a lot younger, they sort of pity me and sympathize with me. They tolerate me, but we all know that I'm the weak link on the court. And I don't like being the weak link.

I realize in every year I don't win a title, I'm closer to retiring.

Compared to how I have raced before and how I have competed, the success that I have had, this does look like doom compared to it.

We should not fool ourselves. We are not one of the world's top teams any more.

Snooker players go into steady decline and lose their intensity after a while. But I will have real purpose the next five years. I want to prove people wrong and win a lot more tournaments.