MUMBAI, JUNE 24: Rahul Dravid is one player in the Indian team who forever seeks improvement. The man who amassed 461 runs to emerge as the highest run-getter in the World Cup proved that on arrival home today when he said he should have been more consistent in the championship.

“I personally feel I should have been more consistent with my bat and should have got runs against Zimbabwe which ultimately cost us the place in the semi-finals,” he said on landing at the Chhatrapathi International Airport on way to Bangalore.

“I think the loss to Zimbabwe proved very crucial despite playing some decent cricket against some top teams like Sri Lanka, England and Pakistan,” said Mr Dependable who scored scoring two centuries in the tournament.

“I thought we had played well against some big teams and were hoping to qualify for the semi-finals, but after learning that we could not make it to the semi-finals we were at a loss for words. In fact, it not qualifying still rankles.”

Excerpts from theinterview:

On his big partnerships with Saurav Ganguly vs Sri Lanka and Sachin Tendulkar vs Kenya: I am a great admirer of their batsmanship. It’s an inspiration to watch them bat.

On his one-day successes: I always knews I was good enough to succeed in Tests as well as one-dayers and I am not trying to prove anything to anybody.

The reaction of the team to media criticism by former Test players: We never paid any attention to all that. We were totally focussed with the job on hand.