It's a funny thing, life... as much as you don't want the sun to come up, it comes up the next day. Life continues on and you have to make a choice in how you handle it.

To win Test matches consistently you've got to take 20 wickets - yes, you've got to score runs but if you can't bowl a team out it doesn't matter how many runs you score.

When I played in the Australia team the captains were all nerds. Allan Border was a nerd, Mark Taylor was a nerd, Steve Waugh was definitely a nerd and Ricky Ponting too.

I bowled in tandem with Brett Lee, who produced some fast, fiery spells. When you've got someone bowling up above 90mph, it has a fear factor that not many people really enjoy.

You can tell yourself that everything is normal, and try to keep the same routine from every other Test match, but there is always something extra special about an Ashes series.

An Australian prime minister once said that his job was the second most important job in the country - behind being captain of the cricket team. It's not a job you take on lightly.

Australia play best when they've got a bit of mongrel about them, when they play hard out in the middle, when they don't give an inch, when they play an aggressive brand of cricket.

The Foundation and Pink Day are about celebrating and hope, I know when the time comes and I move on, if I have people celebrating my life and what I bring to the world I'll be happy.

Have a little protection if that helps your bowler - Brett Lee always wanted a cover and a midwicket because they helped him bowl his natural length and made him more effective as a result.

If you continually watch yourself do something well, it has a positive effect. If you sat down and watched yourself bowling, batting or fielding badly, it will probably have the equal effect.

The joy he brings to the millions of his countrymen, the grace with which he handles all the adulation and the expectations and his innate humility - all make for a one-in-a-billion individual.

Jimmy Anderson deserves everything he gets, and even though he is an Englishman I will be delighted for him when he goes past my record and becomes the most prolific fast bowler in Test history.

I think the important thing for budding cricketers is to always put in 100 per cent - to continue to be your best, work hard, don't ever think you are at the top of your ability, you can always improve.

If they don't execute well enough then there's nothing much a coach can do. But if they do execute those plans correctly and they don't work, then you need to be able to adapt and come up with something different.

Back in 2006-07 when we completed the first Ashes whitewash in 86 years, the historical significance didn't really filter in to our thinking. We didn't realise it at the time - we were just making amends for 2005.

You expect to cop a bit wherever you go. In the past there hasn't been any racism or any racist comments that I've seen. I'm expecting a tough time, as we get everywhere we go, but racism hasn't been a problem before.

My strength was probably more the mental side of the game rather than the skill side. I always had that self-belief that I was good enough. You have got to believe you are good enough, otherwise there is no point to it.

You still have to enjoy the tour games. If you go out there and just go through the motions, you can easily get into bad habits, you lose a bit of rhythm or a bit of form and then things can go pretty bad pretty quickly.

There's always a little bit of anticipation - some people call it nerves - the night before, and although I always slept pretty well before big matches, you want to be on edge a little bit to get the best out of yourself.

You can come up with all the gameplans that you want but the guys in the middle have to execute those plans. If Jimmy Anderson or Stuart Broad serves up a leg-stump half-volley, you can't turn round and blame Andy Flower.

I had always had the same pre-match routine that I went through every day - get up, go down for a swim and a stretch, back to the room for a shower, then down for brekkie - the same routine every game, and it got me ready.

I always wondered if I would know the right time to retire. After that first Ashes Test in Brisbane in 2006 I had no intention of stopping. I was still focused and wanted a thousand international wickets. I was still driven.

The night before a game, I'd think about who I was playing, and then how I'd bowled against those guys, if I had got them out previously. While I was playing, I could recall nearly all my wickets and how I got the batsman out.

By the time I made my international debut Tendulkar was already being counted among the best batsmen in the world. Most bowlers knew that his was the crucial wicket in an Indian batting line-up that boasted of many talented batsmen.

A coach these days is more of a manager than a coach. At this level, you shouldn't really need a coach. You need someone to organise, to come up with gameplans and tactics, rather than someone who is going to do much actual coaching.

I used to come out and say I was targeting certain players in the opposition team, particularly players I had had success against in the past: Gary Kirsten, Brian Lara and Michael Atherton, for example. It is a mental part of the game.

One of the great things about cricket, and certainly something that I found helpful, was that as soon as you step over the boundary rope you can switch off everything that is happening off the field and focus solely on what is happening out on the pitch.

Since retirement, I have been given the opportunity to spend time with my family. I have three children, aged 16, 14 and one. That is what is really important to me. I have also done a little commentating in Australia and am part of the MRF academy in Chennai.

A lot of people who have had the support of a McGrath breast care nurse, they come up and say what a positive difference it's made in their lives and that in itself makes me realise what we're doing is having a big positive effect and inspires me to keep going.

The one thing you can't do is get carried away with that pace and bounce. There's a temptation to charge in and just slam the ball into the pitch and you can end up bowling too short. You still have to bowl the right length so that you threaten to take wickets.

I'm expecting big things from our bowlers, from Peter Siddle, who plays the enforcer role, Stuart Clark, Mitchell Johnson and Brett Lee when he gets fit again. In batting, there's Phil Hughes, whose already done well for Australia and scored hundreds for Middlesex.

Sometimes when things are happening outside the team, when forces are at work to try to break the team apart or cause issues, it can actually have a different effect - it can bring the boys closer together. They become more of a unit and they start to protect each other.

As a bowler it's a strange feeling when you start running through a team. You get that one wicket under your belt and suddenly you start running in feeling loose, feeling relaxed and thinking about what you want to bowl rather than focusing on trying to force that wicket.

The year 1989 was crucial for me because I had just moved from the country into Sydney to play first-class cricket. That was the time I heard of a teenager called Sachin Tendulkar, who had burst on to the scene and was being annointed as successor to the great Sunil Gavaskar.

That was how we categorised ourselves in the dressing room - you were either a nerd or a Julio. Julios have got to look perfect - the hair has got to be perfect, they've got to have the right gear on, it's all about their appearance. The nerds weren't bothered about how they looked.

It's incredible what the Sydney Test has become - it's now iconically the pink Sydney Test. It's the sixth year that the McGrath Foundation has been involved and the support from everyone in cricket - right across the board, supporters, teams, you name it - has been absolutely incredible.

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