Athlete

I have four dogs - Sadi, a Retriever, and Oscar, Ruby and Bella, who are Yorkies.

That's a beautiful thing about India, they got such a big pool of players to call upon. If somebody gets injured, the replacements are generally pretty good.

I mean everyone's always spoken about fast bowlers and especially myself as a strike bowler, but I look at myself as somebody who could hold down the runs, you know, over 200 games, I've taken a lot of wickets but I've got a pretty decent economy rate.

When you don't have sport, it's like, oh, what do we fall back onto? And I think Nelson Mandela was the first person to really say that: sport unites people in a way that nothing else does. And if you take sport away, then I don't know really what we have.

Do I like being No. 1? Absolutely. Who doesn't?

I enjoy taking wickets more than most people can understand. I'm addicted to that feeling.

I want to keep experimenting and trying to change my game.

I very rarely get to enjoy doing nothing.

One of my highlights of being a Proteas player is that at one stage we were the No. 1 team across all formats.

The more 'A' side cricket that can be played, it will keep the fringe of international cricket interested.

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.

Lord's is a special place. I used to love watching games there as a youngster and I've been fortunate enough to play a couple of games there.

Allan Donald and Shaun Pollock were my heroes, so I thought averaging 22 or 23 and taking five-wicket hauls was normal.

I want to be a good cricketer, but I am a person first and a cricketer second. I won't always be a cricketer, but I will always be a person.

You got to be street smart I suppose when you bowl in India. You can't bowl at the same pace at the same place. Guys will work you out.

Test matches are what really drive me to perform.

There's so much in favor of batsmen these days. Fields are small, two new balls, powerplays, bats have got bigger than they used to be, the list can go on.

The thing I've got to concentrate on for South Africa is bowling at good pace and if the ball is in the right area that will cause enough trouble.

The workload with Test cricket was too much as I want to extend my career for as long as I can.

I think the more common players who have been around for a while - Joe Root, Alastair Cook, Jimmy Anderson, Stuart Broad - those guys I know of, they're fantastic players.