No thought of retirement:

Rahul has made it clear that he is not going to retire from cricket unless he stops enjoying it. 

"The thought (of quitting) has never crossed my mind. Sometimes, maybe to some extent, your priorities may change a bit, but no, I don't think I ever thought of it (walking away)," Dravid has been quoted as saying in the DNA.

"I still love the game and I still enjoy playing it. I still love the contest even if it is a Ranji game or a Duleep game. I still have the ability to keep improving. Whenever I have had time, I have trained and worked hard as anyone else and I never felt that that training was a pain. I get a lot of joy and satisfaction in just coming and training and batting in the nets," he added.

Speaking about the attention he got during the lean period, Dravid said the players who perform consistently well in the past are sujected to huge amount of scrutiny and hence he was not surprised about the attention he got.

"I just got on with it. I was never surprised. I have always scored runs so when I wasn't scoring runs, there was going to be a certain amount of attention. Cricket in India has a huge amount of scrutiny and a huge amount of following. So you are going to expect that kind of scrutiny when you are not doing well," he admitted.

"I was just realistic and said: 'This is the way things are and this is the way things are going to be and I just have to focus on things. I still retain a sense of enjoyment and joy for the game," he added.

When asked how saw the future for himself, Dravid said, as long as he was enjoying the game he would continue playing be it for India or for Karnataka and the day he stopped enjoying he would walk away.

"Like I said, I just try and enjoy it and hopefully I will know that when I am not enjoying it. The thumb rule is as long as I can enjoy... coming to the gym, practicing and training... I will keep doing it. Hopefully, I will get to know some day when I am not enjoying it and that will be the time to walk away," he said.