QUOTES

Archer has an incredible talent. He is one of those fast bowlers who makes it look easy.

In one-day internationals, the batsman is under pressure to get on with run-scoring and does not have the luxury of leaving too many deliveries.

As lots of us ex-pros know, you are a long time retired and there comes a stage when you would give anything to be back out there playing.

Pietersen is an incredibly confident cricketer, almost brash.

Word can spread quickly around the international circuit if a player is perceived to have a fault, particularly if it is against short bowling.

You do not want cricketers who are cowed by adversity, waiting for someone to tell them what to do.

By empowering players - not just players, but grown men - to think for themselves outside of the game, you hope that they will be more likely to adapt to a situation and seize the moment in a sporting contest.

It is not difficult to come up with a long list of cricketers who like to have a good time - from the village green to the Test arena, it is a sociable sport.

It is nothing new for the management of an international cricket team to wrestle with the amount of freedom afforded to players.

As a player, when things are going against you, you look to the captain to inject some energy but I don't see any of that from Amla.

The art of coaching is to give a player freedom to bring out his talent. It is the player's responsibility for what happens once they are on the pitch.

This is Test cricket. Being positive is not far away from being reckless. For all that the sport has become more fast-flowing and entertaining, you still need batsmen whose first instinct is to be patient.

When you think of the great eight-wicket bowling figures in Test history, the names of Michael Holding, Shane Warne and Stuart Broad spring to mind.

Preparation is not just about batting and bowling. You have to consider lots of things - the travel, the weather, the heat, the light, the sounds. You have to be comfortable with everything.

Indian fans probably warm to Tendulkar more, because he was their darling from a very young age and he is a class above anyone else in his team. But in any other generation Dravid would be there by himself.

I think most cricket fans would accept that Dravid and Tendulkar are very different individuals but they are both great players.

The old player in me can certainly sympathise with how your targets change because you simply do not know what is around the corner.

Opening the batting in Test cricket, facing up to fast bowlers looking to do their worst with a new, hard ball is incredibly tough. You have to be brave, single-minded and prepared to work very, very hard.

Players like Alastair Cook do not come around very often. To play for so long and achieve so much says everything about his fitness, concentration, discipline and skill.

A disciplined, patient, defensive period in a Test match is not old fashioned and boring - it's essential.

There's little that's subtle about Hardus Viljoen - he's a broad-chested, broad-shouldered fast bowler, who simply trundles up to the wicket and hurls it down as fast as possible.

The truly great players have this advantage over the rest of the international elite, gifted though those others are: they have the ability to slow down a ball travelling at 90mph, to move before others can, to make the world adjust to their rhythm rather than the other way round.

It is difficult to master the skill of scoring runs from a 90mph delivery that is dug into your armpit or is fizzing past your nose.

Virender Sehwag can tear any attack apart. He is audacious, takes risks and has fantastic hand/eye co-ordination.

For me, Test cricket at its best is all about ebb and flow of initiative, and it's always a fascinating moment of the match for me when one sides snatches it from the other.

I cannot believe that people really sit and devote hours of their lives watching reality TV like 'Big Brother.'

Genius doesn't always come in neat packages.

A good commentator is someone who obviously people like listening to, who gets the blend between description, entertainment and accuracy of conveying the event right. If you can do that in an interesting way, you are a good commentator.

Fairness matters.

The Twenty20 is itself a banal game, a crude game, but it works, so I hope Twenty20 commentary works.