James Anderson Quotes

I enjoy wicket-keeping in the shorter format. I think when we are bowling first, it gives me an idea of how the wicket is behaving.

Hitting a baseball well, as in cricket, is a very rare skill. One of most difficult things to do in the world to do, hitting a ball coming at you at ninety miles an hour with a round bat. Wonderful to watch.

There are very rare occasions when you get a good wicket to bat on, but whatever wicket you get, you have to play at least 20 overs for your side.

For me, fielding and running between the wickets are two things that are very important. For that, you need to motivate the guys about how much of an effect it will have on the game.

I remember playing a Twenty20 game in Australia in 2007 and Matthew Hayden smacked one back at me. My head goes down as I follow through and as I looked up I just saw this white flash pass about an inch from the side of my head. If it had been a touch straighter I would not have had time to react and who knows what could have happened.

If you look round the world, most teams want guys who can bowl up at 90 mph because they can make things happen when it isn't doing much.

I like to watch batsmen who will entertain and, as things stand, an opening spell from Jimmy Anderson is about as good as it gets.

The one thing you can't do is get carried away with that pace and bounce. There's a temptation to charge in and just slam the ball into the pitch and you can end up bowling too short. You still have to bowl the right length so that you threaten to take wickets.

You have to respect the bowler, and every batsmen have their way of tackling the spinners.

A lot of the emphasis on international bowlers is on their pace and Australia coach Darren Lehmann is a big fan of bowlers who can bowl 90mph-plus.

Playing with Morne Morkel and Dale Steyn, I am a very lucky guy. Not many people are going to attack those two, which means the batsmen will attack me. And if they attack me, there is always a chance I can get a wicket.

There's a lot of guys who can bowl 150 km/h when you give them the ball when they're fresh in the morning, but can they do it late in the afternoon when it's boiling hot and they're bowling their 20th over for the day? I want to be able to do that and I want to be the only guy who is able to do that.

When you are bowling with a new ball, there are only two fielders outside the circle. With the old ball, batsmen don't care how many guys are outside the circle.

Running-between-the-wickets is the ability to convert ones into twos, twos into threes, and threes into fours. And to reach the wickets on time.

I can get runs much faster if I stay there in the middle to give bowlers more time and cushion.

When I bowled to batters like Michael Vaughan or Jacques Kallis who were classical, technically perfect, sound batters, I always found that I could get them out.

Over the years I have been watching Pakistan when playing against them or with them in county cricket. And they have been brilliant bowlers and batsmen and great individuals.

In terms of pace, every captain wants pace in their attack.

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.

I don't know what it is about fast bowling. I guess it's the ability to do something that nobody else can really do.

When you are playing the longer version, there are times when you don't have to get bat on ball on a regular basis but maybe a good leave outside the off stump can play its part in you surviving and the time that you would like to spend on the crease.

I would love to bowl 160 km/h. Any fast bowler would love to do that. But for me that is almost impossible.

There are many things that you just observe while watching Steyn. Just seeing him bowl is a great learning in itself.

Fast bowling is not an easy job. Especially if you are also a batsman as well as being a fast bowler, a fast bowler has to work harder than any other cricketer on his fitness.

If I'm playing well I'll get through a bat in three weeks. I batter them.