Exclusive by Monty Panesar: I don’t try to intimidate batsmen

Umpire Aleem Dar gave me the ball to keep as a souvenir at the end of Monday's match. Whenever I have taken five wickets in an innings I have kept the ball, so I have five in my collection now, as well as the odd stump or two.

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At the moment I have them all tucked away in a little box at home — there certainly aren't enough souvenirs' to put in a cabinet yet! People have commented on my frequent appealing during the match and I have to admit I probably got a bit too excited when I was bowling on the final day.

Perhaps I need to calm down a little butmy enthusiasm is such a key part of how I am as a cricketer.

When I saw the ball bouncing and turning so much at Old Trafford I just got carried away because it doesn't happen like that very often.

But I'm definitely not trying to pressurise or intimidate the batsman or the umpire. That just isn't me.

Aleem Dar had a word with me at one point, telling me to make sure I appealed before celebrating a wicket but I don't think he was getting annoyed with me.

In fact, he was laughing at my behaviour.

He said to me: "I know you're getting excited, just take it easy."

I think most umpires know what I am like now, I've been the same since I was very young. But I've never been warned by an umpire for excessive appealing.

Sometimes I have been told to calm down a bit but that's all. You can't play international cricket without trying to be as competitive as possible, but with mewhat you see is what you get — I am always smiling and excited because I just enjoy playing so much.

As far as I'm concerned it is just a game — there are far more serious things happening in the world and I'm just lucky to be doing what I'm doing. I try to keep things in perspective.

Outside of cricket I am mostly quite a calm person. It is only in sport that I seem to get worked up.

Playing football when I was younger if my team had a goal disallowed I would sometimes moan too much and my aggression would come out. But I was never sent off or anything like that.

It is very flattering for the West Indies captain, Daren Ganga, to say I am one of the top three spinners in the world but I don't think you can put me in that category yet, despite my 10 wickets at Old Trafford.

I have taken quite a few wickets for England in the early stages of my Test career but my view is that I have to keep being successful for a much longer period.

There are world-class spinners around who have been producing the goods consistently for five or 10 years.

In my opinion these four guys are the best in international cricket at the moment (Shane Warne would comfortably make the list but he no longer plays for Australia): Muttiah Muralitharan (Sri Lanka): Definitely the No 1. His unique action means he is capable of turning the ball on all surfaces.

Anil Kumble (India): He is very experienced so it is relentless pressure, pressure, pressure and he bowls vicious leg breaks.

Harbhajan Singh (India): He seems to make the ball spit at you so consistently and he has mastered a dangerous doosra (off spinner's equivalent of a leg spinner's googly).

Daniel Vettori (New Zealand): He provides left-arm variation, alters his pace cleverly and keeps taking wickets on green pitches.

The skill of a true spinner — the art — is what I'm still learning. I am not an artist yet. It is all about subtle variations and strategies. Vettori and Harbhajan are the masters of that kind of stuff.

People talk about top spinners having the ball on a string and that is what I am trying to achieve. Phil Tufnell had the ball on a string — he knew how to bowl to different batsmen at different pace. He was a real genius of left-arm spin.

There seems to be a lot of talk about whether I need more variation in my bowling but that's something I have to acquire as I go along.

There were even suggestions that I bowled a doosra at Old Trafford, but I think the ball must have just hit a pebble in the rough and gone the other way!

Our next match is at the Riverside and I don't expect the conditions to suit me as much there.

So my message to the fans is: Please don't expect miracles. I'm not going to take 10 wickets every time.