Quotes from Jonathan Agnew

A bowler should be allowed to point out to an umpire that a batsman is backing up, leaving the officials to watch what is going on.

It's easy to throw mud at coaches because we don't see - nor often understand - everything they do.

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.

When you are at the top, teams raise their game to play against you, breathing down your neck because they want what you have.

Being a stepfather is a huge challenge.

The bouncer shouldn't be banned. Hitting batsmen, I'm afraid, is part of the game. But it's the histrionics, the nonsense, the prancing, the in-your-face nastiness. It's become accepted, and actually it's not acceptable at all.

Test cricket might seem to be slow and ponderous at times, yet it is capable of conjuring great drama from nowhere.

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.

I love the individual characters that cricket produces and, more than most other sports, the unlikely heroes.

Test cricket is about respecting the opposition, the conditions and the circumstances.

Tillakaratne Dilshan is innovative and scores quickly, while Upul Tharanga is neat and well organised - and left handed.

Usually a captain will allow his bowler to set the field, while exercising overall control and maintaining the authority to step in if he sees fit.

Bowling on English pitches is not rocket science. If you bowl a good length on off stump, the ball just has to do a fraction, up or down or side to side, and you get someone out.

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.

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

No one means to drop catches. Everyone has done it.

Rather than influence the media, I hope that my progress from player to correspondent shows that there is a role for former cricketers in the media, despite the intolerant views of some of my colleagues in the press box.

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.

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.