In terms of pace, every captain wants pace in their attack.
When I started out, I wasn't a thinking bowler, but talking to seniors and coaches helped. They would always tell me that I ought to be clear about where I wanted to bowl before I ran in to bowl.
I have put in a lot of work on my bowling.
I could bowl really fast and as the years went on I started to develop more skills - I learnt how to swing the ball a little bit, use the crease a little bit more. But I knew what my skill was and that was to run in and bowl fast.
Marcus Trescothick. No question. I hate bowling to him. I pitch it up, he drives me through the covers. I bowl back of a length, he runs me down to third-man. I go short, and he lifts me over the keeper or pulls me for four.
I think it is always a challenge when you go and play abroad. You are competing against the home team, and they know the conditions well. Their fast bowlers always know which length to bowl and also the areas in which they need to bowl.
Speed can't always get you wickets.
Cricket is not rocket science. Bowlers often get wickets through perseverance, accuracy and being patient rather than trying to blast opposition teams out.
In fact, as a spin bowler, you have to work on the batsman over after over.
I am a big fan of the five-bowler strategy.
Unless someone wants to look funny, I'll not recommend anyone to copy my bowling action. But on a serious note, with the confidence that I have got from the amount of runs I have been scoring, when I'm thrown the ball to bowl, I am pretty sure of what I have to do. I may not be the most attractive to watch while bowling, but I can be effective.
Now I do bowling, golf, and tennis. I want to be a good bowler.
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.
In T20, I think it's really valuable to have a bowler who can bring the ball back into the right hander at pace.
I guess bowling is pretty mechanical. It's kind of a natural motion, but you have to stick within those mechanics.
You don't need to spoon-feed bowlers at the international level.
I don't want a new ball when I am bowling in the subcontinent. I want an old ball that can't get hit out of the ground. I want a ball that when I bowl doesn't have true bounce, so that the batsman can't hit it.
I don't bowl to hit people; I bowl to get wickets.
I used to bowl a lot at the death while bowling in the IPL, but it serves as a confidence booster that I can do a lot more with the ball at the start of the innings and at the death.
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.
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.
With my bowling, I didn't know how I was doing it, so when it went wrong I didn't know how to fix it.
When you've got a team who are making a concerted effort to make a batsman feel uncomfortable it can look pretty ordinary.
In red ball cricket, with the field placements, you can look around, take your time, because you have five days to play, whereas in limited overs cricket, you have limited number of balls to play and score.
I try to keep the ball up to the bat, and I usually get the ball to outswing, so I get wickets like that.
