Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I've played cricket seriously since I was eight years old, when I first played for the Essex under-11s. I can't just turn it off.
You have to think about ways of improving the helmet all the time, balancing protection with being able to move and see the ball.
Sometimes when you're around a side you don't realise how good they are until you go away from home and they are a very fine team.
Edgbaston is a ground where you have to think on your feet because it can vary so much from season to season or session to session.
I certainly do not want to be remembered as a good captain who perhaps didn't contribute with the bat as much as he might have done.
Well, I've always prefered playing spin off the back foot because, to my mind, it takes short leg and silly point out of the equation.
It sounds sycophantic, but I don't think I have met anyone in cricket who gives so much to a team as Marcus Trescothick does to England.
There have been a few times in my career when I have been close to tears after completing an innings, but rarely when I am waiting to bat.
I think I've broken every finger, and my wrist on a tennis court in Guyana, and at 33 you get other injuries like hernias and tennis elbow.
When you are no longer England captain, you suddenly realise it's over, you are no longer England captain, and you appreciate what you had.
I like back-to-back Tests at the end of a series, without any county game in between. We know county cricket has no bearing on Test cricket.
It's not an issue for me if I captain England in 42 Tests or in 50. It's a question of what is best for the team in Test and one-day cricket.
I played my first ever Test in Kingston in 1990. I'd just graduated from Durham University and there I was, at Sabina Park, playing Test cricket.
I believe we should come down very firmly on the guilty without infringing the civil liberties of the innocent, like publishing mobile phone bills.
Tiger Woods is someone I'd like to ask questions of. I'm fascinated to know about his life - everything he goes through, is he happy being Tiger Woods?
Adam Gilchrist and Ricky Ponting are anything but conventional, and you can't frown on Steve Waugh for playing his slog-sweep because it's so effective.
Many Pakistani fans will say they have followed their team for too long and had their hearts broken many times, but I love them, and I love their cricket.
Politicians as diverse as Nelson Mandela and Robert Mugabe have been quoted at our team meetings. That is how political England cricket tours have become.
One-day cricket is about continuity, team ethic, understanding each other's role, where everybody fields and bats, when and at which end they want to bowl.
I went to Spain with my brother when I was about 17. We stayed near Barcelona and it was terrible. There were floods and I ended up missing my flight home.
Sourav Ganguly has been an excellent captain, his record speaks for himself. I found him to be a tough competitor and every Indian should feel proud of Sourav.
I can't pick up a pair of new gloves like Alec Stewart or Mike Atherton. I have to get them sweaty and loose, and put extra stuff on my gloves to protect the fingers.
Spinners are a funny breed. If they're playing on seaming pitches they moan and if they're about to play on real 'Bunsen burners' they reckon the pressure is on them.
Michael Atherton's powers of concentration never cease to amaze me. When you need reminding what Test-match batting is all about, who else would you have at the other end?
Trescothick hates it if somebody starts taking the micky or running other people down - which can happen a lot in some dressing-rooms - and he makes sure he stamps it out.
The Australians are a weird bunch - until the cricket starts they're really friendly, saying 'good luck' all the time, but the moment the cricket begins they have a real go at you.
Pujara is not fashionable, he's very much old-fashioned - he's not great between the wickets and he's not a modern, extravagant, in-your-face character like Kohli, Dhawan or Pandya.
In the past two or three years, the number of clubs has doubled ... we've got close to 8 000 players, about 60 to 80 clubs. It's not restricted to the metros any more, it's gone rural.
When I first came into the England one-day side and joined the selectors, I wanted to move away from picking what some people called the bits-and-pieces to the best batsmen and bowlers.
When I first became captain the job was new and refreshing and didn't affect my batting. I was still in the same mental pattern I had had for 10 years; batting came first and captaincy fitted in with that.
I had good and bad seasons for Essex. I was a real form player: if I got on a run, I was happy and confident, but if I had a bad trot, I was far too analytical of my game, worried about it too much and my form got worse.
Whether that was in the Chepauk Stadium in Madras or at the Ilford Cricket School, there was a daily diet of cricket run by my dad. It was a hard school but he knew what he was doing. Everything I achieved was down to my dad.
It was Test cricket as it should be played, when the irresistible force in Allan Donald met the immovable object in Mike Atherton at Trent Bridge in 1998. And I was happy to watch from the best seat in the house - at the other end.
I admire anyone who can show they can dig deep. Ballesteros and Sergio Garcia, people who are obviously mentally strong. Or Graham Thorpe. He is your fighter. He's the kid who is bullied at school but will stand up in a fight when it matters.
I played with Graham Thorpe and Alec Stewart; if anything off the field affected Graham his cricket life was not important and you had to give him a break. But if Alec had issues at home you would never know about it; he would turn up and think: 'This is my job, I can do it.'
I have applied to go to either Durham or Loughborough University to study Applied Physics and would like to get some qualification behind me. But when I do think about becoming professional Essex would be my first choice as I have been very happy playing and practising with them.
Some would argue the opposite: that with better pitches you should be able to express yourself, a bit like Kevin Pietersen does. Looking back, I wish I had been a bit more like that. But I always had a fear of failure, a fear of getting out, so I tried to eliminate risk from my game.
You travel the world and you talk to people about Jos Buttler, and they rave about this lad. I don't like massive comments, but he'd have to be up there with the three or four greatest white-ball players of all time. You're talking Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers, MS Dhoni, Viv Richards.
I'm not naive and realise it doesn't make good commentary or sell newspapers if you only say nice things, and the time does come when you have to say someone isn't good enough and has to go. But commentators like Richie Benaud have shown that criticism can be made in a constructive or humorous way.
From the age of eight until 15 or 16, every time I was out bowling leg spin I was thinking about my dad and when you've done that it stays with you. There are lots of things he did which enabled me to be the player that I was. It wasn't me that wanted to be a cricketer. He made me 90 per cent of the player I was and the person I was.