He wondered when his turn to bat would come. He'd been waiting a while, more than an hour and it was making him uncomfortable in a guilty way. The longer he stayed in this quiet, comfortable room in the pavilion, the better it was for the team. And the team was everything. He'd said it so many times, at interviews and post-match presentations that it should have become a cliche... like that nonsense about some tracer bullet, but no, it became his mantra. He played for the team. But he was a batsman, and deep down, in an ancient place, there had always been a spark of fiery joy when the two wickets fell. He had felt guilty about having this feeling, agonised about what it meant about him as a person and tried to kill it off by listening to music so loudly that someone would have to tap his shoulder to signal that it was his turn to bat. All he'd succeeded in doing was burying it under a pile of phenomenal records, performances and a spotless character, both on and off t...