Alastair Cook

I have achieved more than I could have ever imagined and feel very privileged to have played for such a long time alongside some of the greats of the English game.

You're there to score runs. If you don't do that over a period of time, people will look elsewhere. That hasn't changed and that'll never change, whether it's myself or Jimmy Anderson, you've got to play to a certain level to be picked for England or even Essex.

It's very hard to reflect properly when you're still playing but the hundreds one - when I got my 23rd in Kolkata - felt the most special because it broke a benchmark that had stood for a very long time. It felt good to do something no Englishman has done before.

As cricketers we fail all the time. You score a hundred every now and again but you get out between nought and 20 far more often. If you get 50, you feel bad because you should have got a hundred. Even if you get a hundred, you feel you should have got 150. So you're always failing.

My girlfriend comes from a farming background and I spend a lot of time at her farm doing farming stuff. When you're pulling lambs out, or weighing them or worming them or doing whatever you do to sheep you're not thinking about Brett Lee.

The musical training taught me to focus my mind, before playing in an orchestra taught me how to truly concentrate. If you miss your moment in an orchestra, there is no forgiving.

Yes, there are absolutely moments when you're running out of ideas, and you do genuinely feel sorry for the bowlers when you keep asking them to run in again on a flat wicket, when partnerships get away from you, especially at the tail, which is one of the big differences in the modern game.

I like being outside and I like hard work.

The stats suggest that I'm not a dasher. It doesn't mean I can't play the shots, but when you find a method in four-day and Test cricket that works for you, you stick with it.

If you have lost matches and not played to potential, criticism will come your way. Critics and media will say what they see and take you on. They will say things which you might not like to hear. But that's professional sport.

I made my debut in 2006 and absolutely, there was the pressure of the cricket, but there was no social media. There was no direct feedback to your phone. If you wanted to, you could avoid it.

In international cricket you have to thrive on the big stage, you have to deal with the media and the pressure.