When you're a kid, you dream about playing cricket for a living, playing for your county and then your country.

A competitive edge has helped me through my career.

As long as the body feels OK, I'm enjoying playing, helping the team improve and taking wickets, I'll keep going.

I've spoken to people who have retired once they lost the enjoyment of a long day in the field or going to the gym. If I lose that, it's time to go.

I know my game really well and I'm relatively comfortable in most situations.

I very rarely get recognised in the street.

As a cricketer you can go under the radar. It's not like we're footballers who get papped everywhere. I can go down to the corner shop without getting hassled.

Being away so much makes you treasure those moments you are at home, spending time with your family.

Getting past 30 as a sportsman, the end could be just around the corner.

I'm very fortunate to have the body I have.

I played at Lancashire when Glen Chapple was 40 to 41 and he was as good as he ever was then.

I will try to keep going as long as I can. I'd love to play until the age of 40 - it will be interesting to see if I can do that.

I'm enjoying playing. As long as that continues, I'll carry on playing as long as I can.

Hashim Amla is someone that stands out. He's a world-class player and I have not had a huge amount of success against him.

I just go out and try to help England win games.

An inswinger - that gets an lbw or bowled - after a few outswingers is always very pleasing.

The more I can get into my brain the more I can produce on the field.

I understand that when a player reaches his mid-thirties, and has a few injuries, people start to question how long he can last.

You cannot treat someone differently just because they have become captain. We still took the mickey out of Alastair Cook when he was in charge. You have to treat them first and foremost as a team-mate.

There is nothing quite like an Ashes trip Down Under.

I realise I would not be the bowler I am today without the experiences, positive and negative, that I have had in Australia down the years.

There have not been many occasions when I have bowled pain free and generally you are not 100 percent.

I think I have got a decent pain threshold.

It is easy to get carried away in this Twenty20 era and think Test cricket has to be entertaining all the time.

You can get suckered into believing you have to always be attacking with the bat, ball or fielding positions. But Test cricket is not always like that. There are times when it is a bit slow paced and even a bit boring.

There is a lot of talk about how Twenty20 has changed batting techniques in Test cricket. But it has also had an impact on bowling.

When games are close together you have to draw a line under the first match whether you win or lose, and then start again for the next one.

I dreamt of playing for Lancashire then but never really thought it would happen.

You can feel a bit of extra pressure bowling at your own ground.

It is a knowledgeable crowd at Old Trafford and they will also tell you when you are not bowling well.

The pink ball is a bit different. I don't think it moves as much through the air.

It would obviously be a big deal to reach 500 wickets but I don't see it as a target or goal, it's not something that has driven me on.

In the heat of battle you might not be thinking clearly and that is when players have to take on the responsibility of helping the other guys out.

I love talking about the game and passing on knowledge if I can but being a coach full time is another story.

To get key players out in a Test win is what you remember years later.

The Gabba is not a frightening place to play.

I would like a better record here in Australia but I would like a better record in every country.

A bully waits until they are in the ascendancy to pounce on people.

Dealing with sledging is an individual thing. For me, I am not going to take abuse from David Warner or anyone else and not have a word back. But it is down to the person.

Some of the best cricketers in the world were very quiet on the field but came across in a way that made it very hard to sledge them. It went in one ear and out the other.

I don't like half-volleys being driven for four.

No, no I don't speed or anything. I drive a VW Touareg so.

Maybe, early on, I had too many coaches, with three or four guys all giving different input.

This game's a lot easier early on in your career because people haven't seen you play. Things got a lot harder when people saw what I did with the ball and began to think about how to bat against me.

For me I love playing against the best players in the world, testing yourself and seeing whether you can get the better of them.

I've been doing a lot of strength and stretch work to get stronger.

From an England point of view they have put money into white-ball cricket because our performances in World Cups has not been good enough, I understand the reasons for that. But we have to be careful not to go too one-day, we have to find a balance because there is such a legacy of Test cricket in this country and we can't lose that.

If someone says something to me, I am not going to back down. Whether it's defending myself or standing up for one of my teammates, that is the way I play the game.

I regard sledging, chirping, whatever you want to call it, as one of the weapons at my disposal.

Obviously, when I go in at No. 11 it stands to reason that we will have a better chance of scoring runs or batting out time if the batsman at the other end takes most of the strike. That's because, as my place in the order suggests, he is a better batsman than me.