No I in team

First of all a massive thank you to all of you who read my last post I received a record number of views and I was overwhelmed, Thank You all very much.

The cliche "there is no I in team" is one we have all heard often surrounding sports teams. I know I even used it as a demonstration with my football team last term at school and have been thinking along those lines when I have watched certain teams this year like Los Angeles Lakers, England Cricket team and Miami Heat. In fact it was this last example Miami Heat that made me think about this cliche and how they have been able to successfully put it together as a team but allowed room for individuals and today I'm going to argue that there is not just one I in team but many.

What the cliche simply means is that one individual can not make up a team and can not be expected to beat a team. Rather to win in a team sport you must play as a team displaying good team cohesion and utilizing everyone's strengths. One rugby player can not be expected to run through a whole team and score a try and in reverse stop them from scoring. It can leave you scratching your head when so many of the best individual players come together to play in the same team but do not succeed, use the LA Lakers as an example this year or in previous years not so much recently the England Football team. Both are justification that the whole is greater than any of its parts.

One of the first examples I think of when thinking about this statement is Kevin Pietersen. There have been so many times when he has come out to bat for England played an aggressive shot from ball one and quickly got out. On occasions when England have needed him to steady the ship, for example the first innings of the first test against New Zealand 2 months ago. When this has happened I have thought why can you not just bat for the team and not yourself i.e "there is no I in team". However if KP did not bat like this then he would not be the KP that has played nearly 100 tests for England and scored over 7000 runs as well as producing a brand of cricket that has helped England to dominate in recent time. By KP being the individual and batting the way he does he sets a tempo that opposition have to respond to or he will just take the game away from them. By him using his method of batting it has drawn opposition to focus on him and actually allowed other members of the middle order like Bell and Prior to flourish as all the attention is on KP. He relieves pressure from other players because of the volume of runs he scores and pace he scores them at. If KP was not allowed to be the individual in the team and maybe play more for the team in given situations this England team and the batsmen would not have had the success they have experienced.

Another example I can use to echo that there is a place for individuals within teams is the recent national final runners up, Michigan Wolverine men's basketball team. On this team they have the best player in the nation Trey Burke, who cleaned up at the national awards winning the player of the year award and being voted a first team All-American. There have been times this year when I have been screaming for Burke to pass the ball to an open team mate or not to take on a double team or not taking that jump shot with a man in his face. It would appear to the uneducated eye that he was trying to beat oppositions on his own instead of use his team mates who appeared to be in better positions. Yet its these exact plays that often resulted in him making a ridiculous three point shot like the Kansas game or driving past 2 defenders to take it to the basket. Its this exact individual play that resulted in him being voted as the best player in the nation and taking his team to the national championship game.

Those of you die hard Wolverine fans will say Michigan played their best basketball down the stretch when Trey got his team mates into the game and he was less of an individual  I would agree his assists did go up and the team were very successful. However Burke still used his individual skill to be successful he just became better at deciding when to use his team mates and when he needed to stand up as an individual.

I therefore believe there is a comprise needed players within any team need the opportunity to express themselves as individuals, the chance to show their natural talent hence why they are playing in that team. Yet we all know the best teams are the teams were individuals play for the greater good, the greater good being the team. Next time someone says there is no I in team respond with your correct but there is 11.