Quotes from Andrew Strauss

Cricket is 90-95 per cent mental. To score runs, you've got to feel good about yourself.

I tie my wedding ring around my neck with an old shoelace. It's to remind me of why I play cricket: for my family - my wife Ruth and my boys Sam and Luca.

When I arrived at Middlesex I was the only guy who'd been to public school and I got plenty of stick. But it wasn't held against me for long.

A cricket team is always made up of 11 different individuals and you want to give them enough flexibility to be themselves.

T20 has become a longer and longer format of the game. It is more than four hours in a lot of parts of the world.

I learnt that as soon as you have a negative thought, just push it to the back of your mind. The question is, when it's you versus 11 others; can you be positive under pressure? That's what defines winners.

I think there will be one overarching coach for Tests and one-day cricket. I think you need one person in control and in charge of that environment. Also it's important for people to know I am not going to be playing a tracksuited role. The execution of strategy is over to the captain and coach as it always has been.

I wouldn't rule out the idea of four-day Test cricket, if we can get the playing conditions right and the right circumstances it might be a good thing in some parts of the world.

When you're managing a team the key is, I guess, to find where those boundaries are, where you're prepared to let people go, to what extent you're allowing them to be a free spirit because ultimately it's all got to be in the greater cause which is making sure the team wins cricket games.

So I never forget how lucky I am. That's the reason above all else why I'm determined to keep enjoying cricket, whatever the wins or the losses. As long as I do that then the runs will come.

My life experience has made me realise what's important and what is not.

After time away it always makes you realise how special it is to play for England and what an honour it is.

Grief is a bit of a journey, and it is evolving all the time but I am very functional.

I'm happy unless I'm not happy. And I think this is the thing with grief, there is no rhyme or reason to it and it's been completely different to how I thought it was going to be.

I think you grieve different elements, you grieve your wife who's gone, you grieve the fact she had cancer and you had to watch her die, you grieve the fact the life you built isn't going to be the same as the one going forward. All these different elements hit you at different times.

If you look at English cricketers since the turn of the century, less than a handful have better records away from home than at home. So if everyone in our team is significantly worse away from home, the likelihood is the team as a whole will be significantly worse.

That's what sport can do to you: it gives you a lot of heartache and pain, and sometimes the ultimate rewards.

I was forced to learn a lot about psychology as a player, and as a captain to get the best out of others. There's still a lot of scepticism about it in sport and the workplace, but dealing with fluctuations of form, and pressure, and being away from home are more important than your cover-drive.

I still remember my quote from the 2007 World Cup, when I said scoring two threes was as good as hitting a six. That was me trying to justify what you couldn't. To me, and this was before I became director of cricket, we just couldn't do that again.

Winston Churchill inspired my leadership philosophy. I've read a huge number of his writings, especially his diaries from the Second World War. His thoughts on leadership and duty have helped me as England captain.

And my job is to look at the future of English cricket and develop a side that is capable of winning important series and tournaments in the next four years. And that is what I am going to concentrate on doing.

I don't want to overplay the diary's significance, but it's a really helpful batting aid. It's not an obsession because I don't spend more than 10 or 20 minutes writing a day - and not necessarily every day. I might write in it three days in a row and then not the next four. It depends on the situation.

I have to watch my language. I think a lot about the words I use in both the public environment and the dressing room. The language you use is a direct insight into how you are feeling.

You either back your instincts or you hold off - and you're more likely to back your instincts if you're confident.