The Edge

In 2012, England officially became the best cricket team in the world, after many years of underperformance. They had a great, and settled, side, but it didn't last. Several players eneded their international careers relatively early: the pressures of playing top-level sport almost certainly contributed to that. 'The Edge' interviews many of the players to chart this journey. The problem with the film is its low-brow approach, and its indifference to telling us about any of the technicalities, or detailed history, of the sport. We get some personal insights, but if you didn't know the sporting story, all you would see is a very dumbed-down version. And while psychology is undoubtedly important at the highest level of competition, the necessity of a happy coincidence of natural talent is downplayed: the documentary gives the impression that England started winning, and then stopped again, entirely due to the mindset of the players. The intriguing and complex overlap between a relatively slow-paced, almost reflective, sport, and the intensity of the international spotlight, doesn't come across. There's some interest here, but the film's lack of apparent interest in cricket itself weakens it, for cricket fans and the merely curious alike.

After the most exciting and memorable summer of cricket since 2005, I finally got around to watching "The Edge" a documentary directed by Barney Douglas which follows the England cricket team from 2009 to 2013 and the rise to No.1 in the world. This documentary is brilliant, to put it plainly it's one of the best sporting documentaries I've ever seen.

The film its self is shot beautifully with some creative solutions to help the audience visualize what is happening in the mind of the athlete, the documentary also manages to perfectly describe what is happening without alienating viewers new to the sport, but doesn't make it boring for long time fans. What you see during this film is a testament to the work that goes into being a professional athlete, showing grueling scenes of the work they put in to get to where they are. However, this film is far deeper than just showing how hard they work, its an in-depth look into the psychology of sport and the effects that pressure and failure can have on the human brain, it manages to show this through countless revealing interviews with players and coaches about what they went through. In times like these where we are trying to learn more and more about mental health and open ourselves up to the idea that its ok not to be ok, this film is really inciteful and important in helping us understand what it means to fail and to have pressure placed upon yourself.

I would implore a and sport or cricket or anyone that's wants to gain an understanding of what happens in the mind of a professional athlete to watch this film it's hard-hitting revealing, but ultimately its important that films like these are made and its important that people learn as much as they can about mental health. 9/10

Calm and an easy movie. A tale about teammates bond to become a family and stride towards a common goal. Inspiring to any sporting fans.

I'm a fairly new fan of cricket (2-3 years). So I don't remember this story, but It seems like they add all the exciting parts of what happened at this time (2009 - 2013) without actually giving you any scores, I know cricket scores can be bamboozling to non cricket fans but a few scores in context would have helped. It does seem to be more about the stresses of the game.

You don't have to be a cricket fan to take something away from this amazing sporting documentary. If you do understand cricket though it will help you understand it more. However it's not just about cricket it's about how to get the best out of yourself, friendship, team work, how you can be at the bottom and feel good and optimistic and being at the top it feels like your going to fall off. In short it's all in the mind and like Trot puts it concentration is the absence of irrelevant thoughts.