some possibly predictable but usually unexpected viewing, then, look you see. whereas it would not, for those who know me, be entirely strange to learn of me watching something cricket related, in truth i had neither the ambition or interest in watching a (fairly) recently released documentary on the subject called The Edge. however, my Dad expressed "an interest" (as in "please get this and post it to me, son") in the tape (disc) of it, so i figured it would be best to watch before sending it on.
for those of you looking for a quick, fuss free answer as to whether or not The Edge is worth getting and giving a gander, that would be "yes". this is on the basis that some of the interviews in it are rather good, and the charities supported by sales of the disc. with that said, let me put a perhaps unnecessary *** SPOILER WARNING *** in place for the rest of this. although i would have thought that anyone wishing to watch this would be quite aware of the events, history and so forth contained within it.
ultimately, The Edge is a frustrating and flawed viewing experience. it kind of misses the entire point it seems to be trying to make. the main part it misses out is why, considering the (at face value) astonishing achievements of the England cricket team in the period covered, it was necessary to make a documentary about relatively recent history. for that it would have to ask why exactly no one, in the great numbers we saw then, was particularly interested after 2005. yes, there is an obvious answer, but we shall get to it. well, we if you continue reading.
a quite short summary of this era of cricket, and the documentary itself, is that England were poor at cricket, a new brutal, no-nonsense coach in the form of Andy Flower came in, he bullied and broke them into "world beaters", England becomes "the number one Test team in the world" but oopsie, look at the psychological damage we have done to the players. along the way time is given (once or if you will yet again) for Kevin Pietersen to confess his sins and faults, but of course no one else involved in his troubles or if you like "downfall" is prepared to admit their part.
early on there is a quite telling part of the problem overlooked by this documentary, or if you like film. there is some footage of Sir Ian Botham, lambasting and bashing the ECB for "not building" on the Ashes triumph of 2005, thus English cricket circa 2009 is "a mess" or shambolic". yes, well, the fact that his comments were (at the time) exclusive to Sky TV pay customers was a lot of the answer. cricket had never ever been more popular, in England at least, than during the 2005 Ashes series. for some bizarre reason the ECB decided the best way to "build" on that was to dramatically and significantly cut the audience for cricket by putting the sport out of sight behind what is now called a "paywall". with no easy or sensibly affordable way to watch cricket, people soon lost interest, quickly and in big numbers.
why exactly this documentary would happily skip that important contextual background is a puzzle i do not know. but, then again, it is far from the only point of context that it skips merrily over.
superficially the documentary suggests, or outright implies, that Andy Flower managed to take good players with some talent and mould them into a great team simply by taking them on a "bonding Bavarian boot camp". to suggest this in isolation made England the "number one Test team in the world" overlooks a rather important aspect - the quality of opposition. yes, England at this stage played better, but no mention is made of how victories were "helped" by the alarming decline of Australian cricket, total disarray and political meddling with the South African side, and India being "out of sorts".
another thing skipped over is possibly more controversial, but so be it. the makers of The Edge seem to make no reference whatsoever that the radical change in character of the English cricket team came about from bringing in what felt at the time (and still does, looking back) a disproportionate number of non-English players and staff. it is rather disingenuous (or plain wrong) to ignore and overlook the fact that England achieved what the documentary proclaims as being "the greatest ever period of success" with a Zimbabwean coach, a South African captain and, for good measure, two of our best batsmen (including the superstar of the team) being South African too.
the radical change in world cricket is also all but overlooked by The Edge. during this era, cricket had pretty much all of a sudden become an every day of the year, around the clock thing. this was down to the IPL, certainly, but also the ICC's demands for specific numbers of Tests being played between countries. all of a sudden a tour, or Test series, was not something to relish and remember, it all just became a set of fixtures one was obliged to fulfill. never again shall we see an Ashes quite like 2005, partially because of it no longer being broadcast to a maximum potential audience but mostly because the ICC will not allow a Test series to cover such a lengthy period of time again.
but, as i said earlier before the airing of the grievances (or whines), there are some lovely moments in the interviews, and the whole thing would seem to benefit noteworthy charities.
i don't regret watching The Edge so much as it is that i simply do not understand, or "get", what point (if any) was trying to be made by it. the documentary doesn't really serve as a souvenir of this era of English cricket, since results of Tests, or even the "final score" of series, are rarely even mentioned. if the point was to show how England did so well, then it is superficial in the way that it does show some aspects and ignores far too many others.
perhaps a lot of the problem is the quite recent obsession with "Test rankings and ratings". indeed cricket has always been about statistics, facts and figures. but that was on a player by player, Test by Test level. it was always far more fun, enjoyable and entertaining to discuss, debate and converse on who, or which team, was "the best" than it was to simply look at a league table then move on.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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