With all my bats I like them to be bottom-heavy, so they help me to hold the line through the shot.
— Nasser Hussain
Normally I don't sleep much during a Test match.
If you are not 100 per cent, Virender Sehwag or Chris Cairns will destroy you.
In the longer term we have got to learn how to bowl on flat pitches if England are to head the ICC Championship table.
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 always used the media - if people were having a go I could use it as motivation to prove them wrong.
My philosophy is to respect the opposition off the field and play it as tough as possible on it.
Being awarded the OBE was a great honour and something I had not been expecting.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 want to captain England in more Tests than anyone else.
There is too much cricket being played. You need time away to get your mind in order to reach the optimum level.
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.
Learning how to win comes with switching the onus of pressure away from yourselves and then seizing your moment.
Nothing worse than walking out in a Test match and finding your hand slipping on the handle.
I feel, as a captain, that when you face a batsman who plays spin well you feel as if you are a fielder short.
If a player sits out a tour, it is not a problem, because it is a chance to look at others.
You have to try to move your feet and get to the pitch to hit the spinners away.
Sometimes you don't realise what you've got, because it's right in front of you.
I believe we should come down very firmly on the guilty without infringing the civil liberties of the innocent, like publishing mobile phone bills.
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.
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'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.
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.
A captain has to be able to look a player in the eye before he starts his run-up or goes out to bat.
There is nothing worse after a long car journey than to have to go to meetings.
Above all, I want to captain England in more Test victories than anybody else.
Seems to me the rules are loaded against batsmen. If bowlers show dissent after a near miss they never seem to get punished.
In every sport you need a break and England seem to be the only cricket country which doesn't get one.
People shouldn't underplay what the breaking up of a team does in every department.
Pressure is the biggest single factor in Test cricket.
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.
If we are going to win games, we need 11 fit players. Sir Alex Ferguson does not pick half-fit players.
You should not be flat playing for your country.
Sometimes we don't build up our own cricketers enough.
What you don't want from a player is to walk off and say 'that's the way I play.'
I play hard and I play to win, and my team play for me because of the backing I show them.
Every player needs to be aware of the levels of fitness needed to play international cricket.
Test match cricket is about individual brilliance.
I'm never going to have a Test average of 50 like Tendulkar. All I want to be is the best that I can be.
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.
Captaining England is the best job I've ever had and the last thing I would want to do after more than four years is hand the Test job over to someone who wasn't up to it.
Batsmen like Gary Kirsten, Boeta Dippenaar and Neil McKenzie have good techniques and can bat for long periods.
I want to play 100 Test matches for England.
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?
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.
As a player you always feel the pressure and as a team you are always trying to make sure the opposition are under it.
