Monday, August 03, 2020

The Edge: England's rise to the top of world cricket


Last night BBC2 screened The Edge, a documentary about the rise of Andrew Strauss's England team to number one in the test rankings.

Any cricket fan will enjoy it as the makers managed to interview just about every significant England player from that era. The only absentee I noted was Chris Tremlett, who is now a forgotten figure but was a key member of our attack in the later tests of the 2010-11 Ashes series.

The Edge is very good on the pressures of elite sport, though I am not convinced by the link it makes between Jonathan Trott's intense, introverted style at the crease and his mental health problems.

Because probably the best known England player to suffer such problems is Marcus Trescothick, whose confident, aggressive batting at the top of the order in 2005 did much to send the message that we were no longer afraid of the Australians.

So maybe you can't spot someone's vulnerability to mental health problems from their batting style after all.

Anyway, The Edge will be on the BBC iPlayer for the next year.

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