Quotes from Jonathan Agnew

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.

Genius doesn't always come in neat packages.

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

If anyone ever accuses me of bias - on Twitter, say - they're blocked straight away. It simply isn't true.

Pietersen is an incredibly confident cricketer, almost brash.

I've known Stuart Broad since he was a child, living up the road from me.

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.

I love Rome and the way that you can wander around and find something interesting around every street corner. You can smell the history.

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.

With new fast bowlers on the international circuit few and far between, it's always good to see someone new coming through.

What you can never do on a slow pitch is bowl with any width. If you bowl straight it's almost impossible to get the ball away.

Flying my own small plane is my escape. I learnt to fly in 2006 and share ownership of a Socata TB10.

Roland-Jones is a good, old-fashioned English seamer. He's not especially quick, but he pitches the ball up and swings it away, which is always dangerous.

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.

I played in Sri Lanka, so I know how hard it is to come here and win. The weather is baking hot and the conditions are alien to English cricketers.

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.

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

We don't cover too many draws in Test cricket and its great: it means the cricket is more interesting, more exciting.

I don't think cricket will ever have the same sort of money as football.

There is no other job in major sport like a cricket captain. It is a huge job.

You can't now do county and international cricket and have a life.

Call me traditional, but Test cricket is the most important thing.

That is what Test cricket is about, adapting to different conditions around the world.

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