Feel Assured In The Team Now: Laxman

He has been a long-standing mainstay of Indian middle-order batting line-up but veteran VVS Laxman says he began to feel confident in the team is only the last four years, when he got the "freedom" to play their natural game.

Laxman still remember those years he did not feel the automatic selection of the Indian playing XI, even after it was made in 281 against the Australians at the legendary Garden of Eden Descending winter 2001.

"Over the last four years, first Anil (swimming) and then Mahendra Singh bhai (Dhoni), and coach Gary (Kirsten) given me the assurance team, the freedom to play my natural game, and I am able to translate that freedom to work, "reflects Laxman.

"When I first four years between 1996-2000, opening times and try to do my best for the team if I failed twice, the opener, people used to label me a chance, and I used to get dropped very often," says he said.

Gearing up for the test series against England which starts at Lord's 21 Laxman said in July that he wants to find his first century against the hosts to win the cause.

"I have not yet made a century in England, and the team has won the Lord while I've been around," says Laxman.

Laxman views his career into two halves - one before and one after 2007, when he felt sure the team.

Since July 2007, after the World Cup in the Caribbean, has Laxman played 43 Tests and scored 3,268 runs an average of 57.33. That he played his first 80 Tests, 4,878 runs and tells the story of an average of only 42.42.

Between 1996-2000, in which he mentions, I saw him play 16 Tests and 626 runs at an average score of 24.07.

In particular the stretch between 2004-2007, he could only get 1596 runs from 31 Test 37.11.

This was the period when he carried out the pain, marginalization of one-day cricket, and that if the team decided to play five bowlers, the batsman just what he was shown the door.

"The first four years made me very hard. I realized that the only thing you should focus on the things that are under your control.

"What people say not affect or bother me. I work hard and want to be true to myself in preparation for each match. Do I know when I do this by following the results," he said.

"Cricket is a sport, the results sometimes happen and sometimes they do not. Instead, results-oriented, it is better to focus on the process," he added.

"I approach every game in the same round of a positive attitude and thinking ... I'm enjoying my last four years, the Indian dressing room, each other's company, it is amazing and it's track record."