Thanks for all the advice, Vaughany

Updated: 19:18 EST, 6 August 2008

This is the start of an exciting new era for the England team after an emotional week. I have to admit my eyes were watering when Michael Vaughan gave his moving resignation speech.

It was a shock and very sad because he's a great captain and a great guy. If he was under pressure, it didn't show. One of his strengths is his ability to hide that sort of stuff from the team. I watched his farewell press conference on TV and I felt a connection with what he was saying.

Vaughany deserves so much praise for what he has achieved. I know we have lost this series against South Africa, but he won an Ashes series and took England forward. He managed to find the balance between being laid-back and tough, knowing when to be chilled out and when to turn it on.

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One of his strengths as captain was being able to put his players at ease. Early on in our Sri Lanka tour last year, I was feeling really tense because there was so much pressure on me to succeed on helpful pitches. He was the only person out of the whole squad and management team who came to me to talk about it - after practice one day in Colombo before the first Test.

He told me I seemed tense and said: 'Relax and concentrate on bowling good balls. If the wickets come, they come, but if not, don't worry - just make the batsmen play good balls as often as possible.' He really helped me to calm down. The other thing about Vaughany was that, as captain, he would always try different things. When I was bowling to India captain Rahul Dravid at Trent Bridge last summer, he suggested putting two men on the drive, instead of the orthodox mid-on and extra cover.

My first thought was: 'Are you sure? I've never done that before?' But then I had Dravid caught by the second man on the drive and I remember saying to myself: 'Wow, I wouldn't have thought of doing that.'

I think appointing KP as our new captain made sense - it is good to have one guy leading the Test, one day and Twenty20 teams. Kevin is a really confident character, and that lifts the players around him. It is clear from what we've already seen that he is an intelligent, thinking cricketer. He's told us he wants his England team to play positive, attacking cricket.

Losing at Edgbaston was so disappointing, but I believe that if some crucial decisions had gone our way it could have been a different story. Ideally, I would like to have got more wickets but my economy rate is down, I'm bowling with good rhythm and creating opportunities. I just feel I haven't had much luck during this series. In the last match a crucial lbw decision went against me and Graeme Smith was given not out after gloving the ball.

With decisions not always going my way, I admit I've sometimes let my temper boil over. I've become annoyed several times, but that comes from my passion to take wickets. I'll keep giving it everything but try to control my anger if the umpires don't see things my way!

Ryan Sidebottom had trouble controlling his anger at Edgbaston when I dropped an easy catch, but I can't say I blame him and there are no hard feelings between us. In my mind, I thought I had caught it before it came to me. But there are no excuses, I should have taken it.

As the fielder in that situation, you should accept the bowler is going to be angry. When I'm bowling, I feel just as angry as Ryan if someone drops a catch like that, so I do understand what was going through his mind.

I just thought: 'OK, you were entitled to have a go at me but now let's move on.' If that understanding is established then fine. Ryan and I still have that understanding. In fact, when I was about to leave the ground we had a laugh about it and we have moved on from it now.

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Monty Panesar is an ASICS ambassador. For further information on ASICS, visit www.asics.co.uk