Ian Botham quotes:

Soccer and cricket were my main sports growing up. I had trials as a soccer player with a few clubs interested, Crystal Palace being one, but it was cricket which became my chosen profession.

To me, it doesn't matter how good you are. Sport is all about playing and competing. Whatever you do in cricket and in sport, enjoy it, be positive and try to win.

I don't ask my wife to face Michael Holding, so there's no reason why I should be changing nappies

Jacques Rudolph at the moment is using the inside edge as much as the middle of the bat.

If you can change three lives in 10, three lives in a hundred, that's got to be good, hasn't it?

There is nothing more exciting in sport when the top two countries in the world are battling for the Ashes

I can remember running around at the age of 3, wanting to play golf, cricket and football. I was always active, one way or another, driving my parents mad.

What's happened has happened, so what can we do to make it better for tomorrow and the day after? That's why we're here.

I'm not a great one for looking back.

There is nothing more exciting in sport when the top two countries in the world are battling for the Ashes.

I watched children dying. That will be the image that will stay with me

Retiring for good wasn't difficult. I knew at the time it was right. I was no longer capable of achieving the standards I'd set myself and there was no light at the end of the tunnel.

To win in Australia, for me, has to be the ultimate success because the Aussies live for sport.

There will be no politics, no ifs and buts; if we see something and feel that work needs to be done, we will get people here we can rely on and ensure it is done in the same thorough way as our other projects.

Winston Churchill would be great to have around the table.

If I'd done a quarter of the things of which I'm accused, I'd be pickled in alcohol, I'd be a registered drug addict and would have sired half the children in the world's cricket-playing countries

The people in the villages had turned in on themselves. You can understand it. When you have a bad day on the field, what do you do? Talk to your teammates.

You wouldn't see those sorts of decisions given in village cricket, let alone Test cricket. The England players have my sympathy.

I think we are going to see exciting cricket all the way. We are watching the two best teams in the world-and I think England will eventually go on to pip Australia by a single Test.

I think I'd struggle to get excited by synchronised swimming.

Genghis Khan was a fascinating man and way ahead of his time.

The resilience of these people is amazing. I am a great believer that the sooner we get things up and running in terms of sport in this area, the better.

I think we are going to see exciting cricket all the way. We are watching the two best teams in the world-and I think England will eventually go on to pip Australia by a single Test

Aussies are big and empty, just like their country.

Cricket is full of theorists who can ruin your game in no time.

For many sportsmen, coming face to face with irrefutable evidence of their mortality is the moment they dread above all others.

You will attract the younger generation and they might well prove tougher than the older generation. What we are trying to do is to look at the future and see what we can do to bring some stability back to people's lives.

Sport can bring communities together and can release a lot of pent-up emotions.

I want to stress again one aspect of the game which is most important. Never argue with an umpire.

Sport can bring communities together and can release a lot of pent-up emotions

To win in Australia, for me, has to be the ultimate success because the Aussies live for sport

What's happened has happened, so what can we do to make it better for tomorrow and the day after? That's why we're here

If you're playing against the Australians, you don't walk.

A few years ago England would have struggled to beat the Eskimos

All people seem to want to talk about is the current Ashes series, and whether England are going to reverse the trend of recent series.

Pakistan is the sort of place every man should send his mother-in-law, for a month, with all expenses paid.

I don't think I've actually drunk a beer for 15 years, except a few Guinnesses in Dublin, where it's the law.

The most famous cricketers are too big to play county cricket.

I half knew what to expect when I saw the cricket ground in the morning. It was when I started to talk to people working out there, I began to find what I was looking for.