You sent in your questions and we put them to Justin.

Below is the transcript of our interview with the Aussie batting star.

Listen to Justin Langer

Krishna, Texas

As Australia are so good, how do you guys motivate yourselves without a real challenge?

One of the great motivators is knowing the extraordinary depth of talent in Australia. Therefore, from every individual's point of view they know they have to be on the top of their game, improving all the time, otherwise their position will be taken up by someone else who's waiting in the wings in Australia.

From a team point of view, when Steve Waugh took over the captaincy four years ago and John Buchanan when he took over the coaching, they urged the team to always be improving and to take the game to a new level, so there's always motivation.

We're also very proud playing for Australia and wearing the baggy green cap. Whilst some people might think it's hard getting motivated, it's actually very easy to want to play great cricket.

Daniel Crawford, London

Why do you think Australia are so far ahead of the rest?

I think a lot of it has to do with the way we're brought up and the system we play under. In Australia it's a very streamlined system, our domestic game is played to a very high standard. Therefore, to graduate through the grades from "A" grade cricket, then to domestic first-class cricket in Australia and ultimately through to Australian cricket, the players have to be the best of the best.

Because it's such a tough, cut-throat competition at all levels, I think the players have to get better and improve all aspects of their game. So again, from an individual point of view, players are always looking for the edge and looking to develop their mental, technical and their physical game. With that, you have a constant improvement and a higher standard of players.

In the Australian side, it'd be very rare for, say, a batsman to come into the side unless they're averaging at least 50 in first-class cricket. Whereas in other parts of the world players are playing Test cricket averaging 35 or 40. That doesn't really happen in Australia, so from a development point of view that's why we're such a good side.

Also, with this current side we have outstanding leadership through Steve Waugh and John Buchanan and a lot of good leaders in the team. We have a very high skill level and very high motivation because of the pride of playing for Australia and the rich history that comes with that.

Gary, USA.

Which country do you think can seriously challenge Australia and replace them at the top?

History will say this is a cyclical thing. We're in a great phase of cricket at the moment, if you take some of our great players out of the side - Steve Waugh will one day retire, Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and Mark Waugh's already retired. Adam Gilchrist retires one day, Matthew Hayden and even Brett Lee and Jason Gillespie will retire one day!

While we have great depth, we're very fortunate to have some great, great players. In terms of the other teams around the world, most of them have got some very good players too. The only thing they lack, where we are different, is we have a lot of great players and very experienced players, where most of the other teams have very good players or good youngsters coming up. That's where we have the advantage at the moment.

Mr Khan, Birmingham

Who do you rate as the fastest bowler you've ever faced?

Without any question, Shoaib Ahktar. Although I would say that Jermain Lawson, who I faced in the last Test in Antigua, the first spell he bowled in the second innings was very, very fast. But I've always thought it'd be difficult to face anyone quicker than Shoaib Ahktar.

Amit Chatterjee, Germany

Who do you think are the best Test and one-day batsmen at the moment?

There are a couple that spring to mind. The obvious ones are Brian Lara and Sachin Tendulkar. Sachin, technically, is the most perfect batsman I've ever seen. Brian Lara is the bloke I would most enjoy watching bat. He can be reckless and ruthless in the way he can destroy opposition and I just love the way he goes about his batting. I think he's the best batsman of spin bowling in the world.

I think Ricky Ponting is starting to get up there amongst Sachin and Brian as well. His form over the last few years has been absolutely outstanding, in both forms of the game. I'd say he's a bit of a cricket prodigy himself in terms of Australian cricket. He's up there with those two guys. Matthew Hayden, my opening partner, is an extremely dominant player and Adam Gilchrist is arguably the most destructive player in the world.

Dinesh, Starkville, USA

How do you think you'd do against your own bowling attack?

That's a very good question. We have a very well balanced side, great batting and great bowling. It's a tough question to answer. It'd be a great challenge. I had a great conversation with Sir Vivian Richards before the Barbados Test match. They had a lot of great players in his time, Desmond Haynes, Gordon Grenitch, Clive Lloyd and Viv.

He said he would have loved to play against our current side. He'd have loved to face our bowlers and that's a great compliment to our attack. I feel the same way. We face a few of the guys in our domestic cricket, but having them all come together would be a very big handful and a tough assignment and one that I imagine would be like facing the great West Indies attacks of the past.

James Bastion, UK

Did you always want to be a cricketer and what you would have done if you hadn't made it?

Probably it would have been another sport. Maybe a professional tennis player or a golfer. The only reason is, since I was a kid I've loved practising things. Off the sporting field, I wanted to be a physiotherapist or maybe a writer. I love writing. I've written three books now and I think that's something I'll do a lot more of once I finish playing cricket.

Alex, Kuwait

Who was your favourite cricketer when you were growing up?

In terms of heroes, I used to love Viv Richards and I used to love Kim Hughes, who was captain of the Australian team and also West Australian. So I think Viv Richards and also Dennis Lillee and Rod Marsh were my favourites when I was a boy.

Rizzie Chowdhury, London

Which is your favourite country to tour and why?

I think it has to be the West Indies and not because I've just come back from there! I've got lots of fond memories of the West Indies, I love the way they play their cricket. There's lots of music at the grounds and there's lots of laughter and dancing at the grounds and they just love talking cricket. All they do is talk cricket and when you're someone who loves cricket as much as I do it's an awesome atmosphere to be in.

The West Indies were the great team when I was growing up too so it's amazing just being there and seeing their traditions. But having said that The Ashes is obviously the ultimate battle for us. South Africa's a great place to go and New Zealand's a good country. I've got awesome memories of touring India, I'm just lucky I get to see so much of the world as an Australian cricketer.

Pattabiraman, India

What's your take on sledging? In particular the McGrath/Sarwan incident.

It was a very unfortunate incident and I know that Glenn regretted it immediately afterwards. Glenn has been under enormous pressure, with the illness of his wife Jane and what was a bit of banter that always goes on got a bit ugly because the word wife came into it and Glenn took it the wrong way. It was very unfortunate.

In terms of sledging, though, there's a fine line. What happened with the Glenn McGrath thing was disappointing and shouldn't happen but I also get extremely disappointed and frustrated with Australians being branded as bad losers, sledgers and bad sportsmen over a few isolated incidents.

I remember two ugly ones with Glenn McGrath and then Michael Slater a few years ago in India, isolated incidents. I think in a lot of regards Australia are the world leaders in sportsmanship and I say that in all honesty. We're always applauding the crowd, we always applaud our opposition and we always invite the opposition into our changing rooms after the games.

We've got a great rapport with all the teams off the cricket field. So in that way it's disappointing that we get branded so poorly. We do play the game tough and we never deny that. We play the game hard on the field but I guess from my point of view that's one of the great things about playing Test cricket.

A good example of that was the incident between Brian Lara and Steve Waugh in the last Test match. Some people might say that was an ugly incident but to me that was an awesome part of Test cricket. Two of the great gladiators of Test cricket, going at it. They were showing their emotions and they were playing hard for their country. A great, tough experience in Test cricket. The Glenn McGrath one was unfortunate.

Asiem Sethi, Perth

You must be disappointed not be in the one-day team. Have you ever considered speaking out about your unjust exclusion?

Look, I am disappointed. I'd love to be in the one-day side. It's hard to take and it's never easy to leave the team but I respect that there are a lot of good players in the Australian team. Adam Gilchrist opening the batting automatically takes away a specialist batting position.

Having always batted in the top three, "Gilli" probably takes away my position. It's hard to take and I'd love to be in there, I'd really relish the opportunity to play one-day cricket for Australia. It might still happen one day. If it doesn't, I'll just concentrate on being as a good a Test player as I can be.

Ross, Australia

How much longer do you intend playing cricket and do you have any personal goals still in mind?

I have got some more goals. The word personal is there and I'd never like to come out publicly and say what my goals are. When you were younger it's a lot more tiring psychologically but as you get older you tend to get more tired physically. So you can handle the concentration and the pressure a lot more as you get older but it takes more of a toll on your body.

So basically as long as my body can hold up and I'm enjoying playing, I know that's a cliche, then I'll keep playing. I'll have a break now from Test cricket for few months, this is a good time for me to work really hard on the physical side of my game, to get really fit and strong so my body will hold up as long as possible.

Anna, Blackpool

You've taken quite a few blows to your head in your Test career. If you get another serious one would you consider retiring?

Hopefully not. I don't like to think about it. I've taken some precautions, I don't field at bat-pad any more for that reason. But I don't think so. Luckily these days you're well protected with the helmets, if nothing else it gives me an incentive to use my bat rather than my head!

James, London

There's the accusation Australia suffer a bit from "dead-rubber syndrome". Australia tend to win series very quickly but lose the last Test when it doesn't matter. Is that annoying or is it just great you won the series?

It's great to win Test series. I think we've done it three times in the last few series, against South Africa then against England and now West Indies. I think you have to put it in perspective and understand that those are three dead rubbers. The one against England, we made them follow-on and we'd fielded in the Test before for an extremely long time and bowled a lot of overs.

So when it came to the crunch and we needed that little bit extra in the last Test, with only two days in between, our bowlers were very fatigued. It was the same in the West Indies. In the third Test we bowled for 17 hours and 48 minutes and then two and a half days later we were playing a Test match again. We've got to keep it in perspective.

Obviously the West Indies had to create history to win in that last Test match, they scored 417 runs which is an awesome achievement for them. Keeping it in perspective, if we're winning every series three or four nil and then lose one dead rubber, obviously it's not ideal but if you look at the bigger picture it means we've played pretty good cricket for the other part of the series.

Steve Chalk, Nottingham

Would you like to become captain of Australia one day?

Obviously it'd be an awesome ambition and achievement and privilege and everything to captain Australia. It would be the ultimate ambition for any cricketer I think. You never know what could happen. I've had quite a bit of captaincy experience now, who knows what could happen? In a simple answer, yes, it would be a great honour.