Quotes from Jonathan Agnew

I played at school then signed up with Leicestershire when I was 18, for £20 per week. In those days cricket wasn't a full-time job; in the winter you had nothing to do.

I did three winters at BBC Radio Leicester while playing cricket in the summers.

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

In any international sporting career an opportunity comes along that you have to grab. Mine came at Old Trafford in 1985 when I was recalled to the England team to face Australia. It was a huge chance to prove I belonged in the Test side but I failed to take it.

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.

I always wanted to be a professional cricketer, which meant I didn't work as much as I should have done at exams. But, happily, it came off.

I'm not a huge fan of South Africa. I always feel a bit worried security-wise.

When you are captain at the same time, that's when it gets difficult and when your own game starts to decay because you have other worries and pressures.

Stuart Broad's 400th Test wicket did not come the way he would have wanted - Tom Latham chipped the ball to mid-wicket - but he will take it nonetheless. It is a fantastic achievement.

On your debut, you just want to get into the game. I remember when I played my first Test, we bowled first and I went wicketless in the first innings. I felt like I was searching to make a contribution.

I'm not much of a reader; I'm more of a laptop person. I would never consider travelling without it.

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

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.

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.

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.

Some people get the wrong idea about what the job of a cricket correspondent involves - it's not all laid-on luxury travel.

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.

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's an interesting education to listen to cricket commentary when you're not at the game. When you're there, which is most of the time for me, it flows over you. But when you're not there, you look at it in a slightly different way. You pick up things.

Archer has a loose-limbed approach in a run-up that is not very long. He gets into a good position at the crease and releases the ball late from a very high action. He snaps the ball down at genuine pace. He has rhythm to his bowling.

My dad was a keen cricketer - he played at school and club level - but it was hard for him to find time for it because he was a farmer, so he encouraged me and my brother.

It's all you hear on a cricket field - 'Knock his head off, knock his head off.' Cricket has gone too far. It shouldn't be posturing, abusing.

Cruising on the old rice boats in Kerala, southern India, with my wife was amazing.