That last week was hard says Strauss

In rural Buckinghamshire, the worry-lines have cleared as rapidly as a spring shower. When Andrew Strauss looks out of his front door, England's former captain sees bright prospects, and says he is happy and very excited, even though he has nothing lined up for the future.

The immediate prospect is his front lawn, spread with goalposts, various balls and a plastic cricket bat. His elder son, aged six, is mad keen on football, cricket, golf and rugby, and needs his father around.

Beyond the lawn is a field with four sheep that need his attention, if not quite so much as two young boys. They were a present from Alastair Cook, the new captain and his partner in the most productive Test partnership that England ever had, and Mrs Cook comes to shear them.

"It's the sort of decision you wrestle over for a long time but once I'd made up my mind I was certain it was the right time for me," Strauss said of his recent retirement.

"It was a sad moment in terms of letting go and saying goodbye, but it wasn't a sad moment in terms of regrets or feeling I hadn't achieved anything I'd wanted to, or I was going out at the end of my tether or being hounded out.

"I was still loving the challenge of captaining the side, I wasn't actually enjoying the cricket as much. I suppose the lows of getting a bad score were outweighing the highs of getting a good score, and I didn't want to keep on playing cricket just because people thought I might still have a bit more gas left in the tank. I'd rather go out while I still had some enjoyment for the game rather than go on too late and feel bitter and twisted.

"I was starting to see signs that I was moving past my best, and it wasn't just from a batting point of view. I was a bit sluggish in the field and dropping the odd catch [Strauss holds the record of most catches for England with 121 in Tests], and we all go through ups and downs and runs of good form and bad form but when you get older little doubts start creeping in: are your powers waning or is it just poor form?

"And these are dangerous doubts to enter your head because they can rapidly grow and consume you. I don't feel I was consumed by them but they were there in the background."

And what part did Kevin Pietersen, and his messages to the opposition, and his disparagement of junior players in the England team, play in his decision?

"It wasn't as though anything in those three Tests tipped me over the edge, they just reinforced that feeling that I wasn't playing well enough and that the team needed a shot in the arm - a 'refresh' and re-setting of goals, and it was going to be very hard for me to drive that when I was worrying about my own game and worrying that my time was up.

"It's not a topic that I'm all that comfortable talking about at the moment, partly because there's a lot still going on, and I think it's unhelpful for me to say anything that might be put in headlines and might influence people in any way. All I will say that it was a sad episode to go through in that week before the final Test, and I hope everyone has learnt some important lessons. If you don't learn from that - and ask yourself how could we have avoided this situation? - then you are very foolish.

"One of the things I was most uncomfortable about with my decision was that I was retiring without having this situation resolved fully. I didn't want to leave it on Andy Flower's plate or put it in Alastair Cook's hands, but in the end it would have been the wrong reason for me to stay on.

"That week before the last Test was a difficult week - the run-in to selecting the side, my 100th Test, and a Test we desperately needed to win.

"My second innings against South Africa was the only time in my career where I've walked out to the middle and my mind was completely fuzzy. It was at the end of a long day, and it had been a long week, and I just couldn't concentrate, and that was a shame. At the back of my mind I was reasonably clear that it was going to be my last innings for England and I wasn't in a position to play as well as I would have liked to." Thanks, Kev.

"But now I've made the decision and my career is finished, I'd really like to emphasise how comfortable I am with the decision. Everyone has got to go at some stage and I'm very happy with the way it all finished for me.

"I certainly have no regrets, I'm madly keen and passionate that the team go on and play well in future, I'm not bitter how I've been treated by the media or members of the public. I just feel so happy and satisfied and fortunate to have had that opportunity to play for England, and for me personally that's a lovely way to leave the game.

"I'd rather err on the side of leaving too early. Part of that is a reaction to what happened in Sri Lanka where my batting form became a big talking point and people said I had to get runs to justify my place in the side.

"I felt I didn't want to go through that again. It's not the way I want to finish my career and also it's not fair on the team if it's a distraction for everyone else."

Wasn't the challenge of India this winter enough for the only England batsman to score two centuries in a Test in Asia?

"When I was being brutally honest with myself - and I didn't allow myself to think about this very much because when you are playing you can't - I felt that my best days were behind me.

"The odds weren't in my favour and deep down maybe I wasn't motivated enough to put in the huge amount of effort. As you get older you've got to put in more effort to stay the same.

"Sometimes you see someone score a hundred and you think 'God, that looks easy'. But it never is. You are going through torture to a certain extent, especially until you get to 20 or 30, and increasingly I was finding myself doing that hard work but not having the energy to go on to a big score.

"It's not surprising - the captaincy is all-consuming and I'm sure that has some sort of effect over time on your batting.

"People see you deciding whether to have an extra-cover or third slip but to me that is a small part of the job. It's the conversations you need to have all the time with players and selectors and coaches and the physiologists and the statistician and the analyst, trying to figure out ways of winning games, six months in advance or in a week's time.

"A lot is about trying to drive people forward in your team and also say the right things to the media in getting across what you and the team are about, and there's been very little time in the last 31/2 years - even at home with the kids - when my mind hasn't drifted off to some aspect of the job. And I've loved it, I've loved every moment, it's been the best 31/2 years of my life, but it is all-consuming and everything else has to take a back seat.

"I was finding myself increasingly exhausted at the end of a day's play, especially a day in the field after working out ways of getting the opposition out. Then on the days when I had to go in and face a few overs at the end, often I got out, which in the past I'd never done.

"If you are captaining England you want to be doing the best possible job you can do. It has helped me develop as a person more than anything else I have done in my life."

To take away any lingering taste of the Pietersen episode, he has 100 bottles of wine presented by the England players and management to mark his 100th Test. Each bottle contains a different wine - champagne for the Tests in which he made his 21 centuries. It must have taken an immense amount of planning, and suggests the respect and affection in which he has been held.

Captaining England has given Strauss a unique set of skills: leader, decision-maker, public speaker, diplomat, safest pair of hands. Combined with his innate qualities, he is equipped for challenges far transcending sport.