Cricket has always held a strange tension between the individual and the team. By design, it demands periods of isolation and mental stamina rarely found in team sports, and so focus tilts towards the solo performance. Yet without the needs of the team, that performance is devoid of meaning.
It’s a tenuous relationship that carries through to training. Bowling practice is more finely tuned with a batter down the other end; batting practice necessitates a bowler or thrower. As surely as the sport veers towards individualism, it just as inevitably arcs back around to the communal. Skill improvement is seldom a solo undertaking.
