Nasser Hussain

“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.”

“At the end of my career I always wanted to look back and know that I had given it my absolute best.”

“I believe we should come down very firmly on the guilty without infringing the civil liberties of the innocent, like publishing mobile phone bills.”

“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.”

“You are only given so much talent and it is up to you what you do with it.”

“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?”

“There is nothing worse after a long car journey than to have to go to meetings.”

“Everyone should be decisive about what's best for them and stick to it.”

“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.”

“Sometimes you don't realise what you've got, because it's right in front of you.”

“When I see people like Pietersen bat, I wish that I'd freed up a bit as a batsman, but it's very easy to say now.”

“I play hard and I play to win, and my team play for me because of the backing I show them.”

“Everywhere in life people are in authority to make decisions and you have to abide by them, whether right or wrong.”

“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.”

“Test match cricket is about individual brilliance.”

“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.”

“If you try and cover all your bases, like the ECB tend to do, you end up with muddled decisions.”

“More than playing, my greatest moments and love of the game come from captaining England.”

“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.”

“Every player needs to be aware of the levels of fitness needed to play international cricket.”