Accolades pour in from State-mates for the ultimate role model

* EAS Prasanna:  The cricketing world will definitely miss Rahul, but all good things have to come to an end. I also feel that he is retiring not at the peak of his career. His peak was when he slammed three centuries on the tour of England. Nevertheless, there will be a huge void definitely thanks to our lack of planning. If our selectors had begun this rotation policy some years back, we might have had a few batsmen who could come somewhere near Dravid, but I don’t see it happening right now.

* Roger Binny:  He probably had a couple of years left in him, but what about the motivation level? That’s more important and that’s why probably he took this call. A tremendous cricketer, there will be a huge void to fill. We said the same when Gavaskar left, and in came Dravid. I hope someone is out there waiting to take his place. 

* Brijesh Patel:  It’s the end of a long innings which Rahul finished on a high, scoring over 13,000 Test runs and over 10,000 ODI runs and 400-odd catches. He has had a glorous cricketing career overall. What sets him apart is that des[ite all those highs and lows, Rahul has remained non-controversial. He is an easily approachable cricketer, be it for players, administrators or the media.

* Sunil Joshi: I am really surprised that Rahul has decided to call it a day. I think he still had a couple of more years of cricket in him. The way he played in England last summer was superb. As far as Australia is concerned, anyone can have a bad series. But I think he must have thought about it before taking this decision. As far as Dravid is concerned, I think he is the greatest ambassador of cricket and his biggest asset is his humble nature.

* Vijay Bharadwaj: We have watched him for more than 15 years and the way he trains even today is still the same and that is a lesson for all of us. To be honest, he was one of the biggest motivating factors within our team and he also inspired many of us to dream about playing for India.

* Sujith Somasundar: We always knew that he was going to be a big player. The sheer determination with which he played as a youngster marked him out for bigger things. He had enormous patience and the skills were always there. The work ethic he has has helped him have this fabulous career.

* J Arun Kumar: He was so focussed on the game and used to constantly tell me, look at playing a minimum of three sessions. Even if you don’t get runs in two, you have one session to score. That advice helped me a lot.