Think too much of the number of balls bowled (8)
I believe the answer is:
overrate
'think too much of' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'balls bowled' is the wordplay.
'balls' becomes 'over' (I've seen this in other clues).
'bowled' becomes 'rate' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'over'+'rate'='OVERRATE'
'the number of' is the link.
I am not very happy about this link. Some or all of it may be part of another bit of the clue.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for overrate that I've seen before include "Value or assess too highly" , "Think too much of" , "Make too much of" , "Inflate" , "Make too high an estimate of" .)