While there is some merit to the notion that every player must play to the team's benefit and not for personal glory, I find this idea to be greatly exaggerated to the point where even a tremendous individual performance is relegated to the bin.
To be honest, I have yet to see a great player who is not selfish. Who is not selfish about his personal milestones. To his personal glory. To me, the reason why he has become a great player is because he is selfish to stand out from the rest of the pack whether in terms of runs or wickets or goals scored.
Messi, Neymar, Cristiano, Salah, Lewandowski all are extremely selfish footballers when it comes to scoring goals. There have been innumerable times when these players have refused to pass the ball to another player who is clearly in a better position to score. They would rather try and score a goal from an unfavorable position than pass the ball. The reason why they do that is because media always celebrates the goalscorer. Nobody cares about the beautiful build-up play that the teammates conjured up to set up a goal for Cristiano. Only the goalscorer gets the plaudits. History books will always glorify the goal scorer.
It's the same in cricket. Babar, Virat, Tendulkar, Lara are elite batsmen and they are all selfish by nature. It's their selfishness that has transcended their standings in the world of sport. Lara's 400 not out was the epitome of selfishness but history books will never reflect that. What history books reflect is that Lara is the only man who has not only scored 400 in an innings but also the only man to have broken the most runs in a Test innings record twice. Elite sportsmen thrive on this media glorification. It's like oxygen to them.
What can also be argued for is that selfishness is also inherently beneficial to the team in some situations. When Tendulkar got out in the 1990s, that used to be literally the end of India's challenge. So during the innings itself, was Tendulkar being selfish in playing for his score? Who is to decide whether selfishness was in the team cause or the individual cause? Except maybe after the event itself.
Selfishness to me is really intrinsic to greatness. You guys would know Bradman as the greatest batsman of all time. But how many of you know that Bradman played very little cricket on wet tracks because his logic was that his value to the team as its core batsman would diminish if he played on such tracks and that there were better batsmen in the team in such conditions. Isn't this peak selfishness? It kept his average inflated. But now wouldn't you categorize this as selfishness to the team's cause?
Also, why is your best batsman batting at number 4 in Test Cricket? The irrefutable reason is that it allows your best batter to bat at a time when the ball has gone old, doesn't swing, the pacers are off and your best batter can make hay when the sun is shining. Why not have your best batter face the most testing conditions in Test cricket? Surely you would have your best batter bat when the going gets tough as he's the one who should be most adept at countering the conditions. No?
So when people throw around the word selfishness, it's not always bad for the team's cause. Elite players will always be selfish. They are trained to be selfish. It's the one reason that they become elite in the first place. Some form of selfishness will always be good for the team.
