I've never been bothered about being the highest wicket-taker in the world or the best South African bowler in the world.

I come across as quite aggressive and quite in people's faces and everything like that, but I know where to draw the line.

For me, I need to bowl lots of overs in order to start getting back into form - much like a batsman needs to hit a lot of balls.

It's terrible to consider never playing another Test again but what's more terrifying is the thought of never playing again at all.

The biggest relief off my shoulders was when I retired from Test cricket and I knew I didn't have to bowl 40 overs in a Test anymore.

You got to be street smart I suppose when you bowl in India. You can't bowl at the same pace at the same place. Guys will work you out.

Lord's is a special place. I used to love watching games there as a youngster and I've been fortunate enough to play a couple of games there.

It's enough to play for South Africa and take wickets for South Africa, and then I managed to get 400. I never thought that that would happen.

I think it's really difficult for women to be involved with sportsmen that travel, or men to be involved with men or women, whoever it may be.

The thing I've got to concentrate on for South Africa is bowling at good pace and if the ball is in the right area that will cause enough trouble.

Right from the start of my career I was surrounded by people like Jacques Kallis, Mark Boucher and Graeme Smith, who gave 100 percent in every performance.

There's so much in favor of batsmen these days. Fields are small, two new balls, powerplays, bats have got bigger than they used to be, the list can go on.

It's important to get under your opponent's skin and let them know that you are coming for them out in the middle. When you do that, half the battle's won!

If you are playing in the right conditions, there is always motivation to bowl fast. If you are playing in the wrong condition then you want to be a batsman.

That's a beautiful thing about India, they got such a big pool of players to call upon. If somebody gets injured, the replacements are generally pretty good.

When I bowled to batters like Michael Vaughan or Jacques Kallis who were classical, technically perfect, sound batters, I always found that I could get them out.

Generally I don't say too much on the field. However, I am a fast bowler and with that comes the responsibility of saying a word or two and getting in a guy's face.

With my work schedule, it's difficult for me to spend quality time with my dogs. But whenever I'm home, I make it a point to spend as much time as possible with my dogs.

Every ball matters - if with the last ball the opposition need four to win, and you've gone for 96, can you get that out of your mind and bowl a dot ball and win the game?

I think the more common players who have been around for a while - Joe Root, Alastair Cook, Jimmy Anderson, Stuart Broad - those guys I know of, they're fantastic players.

It's very easy to say take a player, a world-class player out of the system of playing and just push him into a coaching role but coaching is a whole other thing. It's a skill.

As long as that drive is still there to play at the highest level, to get batters out, fox them and outsmart them and that kind of stuff, if I can do that I'm going to continue to do that.

From the moment I became an established international cricketer I always had a strong feeling that I should be doing some 'good' while I had that profile, using it to try and make a difference.

When I am off the field, I am the calm, very quiet kind of easy-sailing ocean, and then when I am on a hot streak with a cricket ball, I can be the most disastrous waters you have ever been in.

As long as I've got that urge and that fight and fire inside of me I'll continue and records will come and records will be broken. But the day I don't feel that kind of stuff I'm happy to walk away.

I don't want a new ball when I am bowling in the subcontinent. I want an old ball that can't get hit out of the ground. I want a ball that when I bowl doesn't have true bounce, so that the batsman can't hit it.

In South Africa, you can get away sometimes because of the bounce. You may get away with full wide balls. In India, it does not bounce and finds the middle of the bat and goes flying to point or extra cover for four.

When I made my one-day debut for South Africa I met some of the Aussies for the first time. We lost the game and when I shook the hands of players I just wanted them to look me in the eye and acknowledge I had competed.

I'm lucky because not only do I have the chance to experience the thrill of winning, but I also get to bowl really fast. Those two things are the best feelings in the world, better than any drugs - not that I've tried any.

I could bowl really fast and as the years went on I started to develop more skills - I learnt how to swing the ball a little bit, use the crease a little bit more. But I knew what my skill was and that was to run in and bowl fast.

I think 'A' sides are extremely important, as close as you can get to international cricket. You are often playing against internationals from different countries and it definitely bridges the gap between our domestic game and international cricket.

I mean everyone's always spoken about fast bowlers and especially myself as a strike bowler, but I look at myself as somebody who could hold down the runs, you know, over 200 games, I've taken a lot of wickets but I've got a pretty decent economy rate.

When you don't have sport, it's like, oh, what do we fall back onto? And I think Nelson Mandela was the first person to really say that: sport unites people in a way that nothing else does. And if you take sport away, then I don't know really what we have.

It's something that I've wanted to do for a while, play Big Bash. Unfortunately representing the Proteas for the bulk of my career over Christmas time we've always got Test matches on, the Boxing Day and New Year's Test matches. So I haven't been available.

There's a lot of guys who can bowl 150 km/h when you give them the ball when they're fresh in the morning, but can they do it late in the afternoon when it's boiling hot and they're bowling their 20th over for the day? I want to be able to do that and I want to be the only guy who is able to do that.

Someone like Shane Warne played the game on and off the field really well and got into guys' heads. Even though he couldn't bounce you and hurt you physically, he was verbally aggressive and would let you know he'd get you out. He made batsmen doubt themselves. I learned from players like him and made a point of incorporating it into my own game.

Share This Page