The psychological edge?

I’m stuck on level 8 of Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. So I quit and got to reading a bunch of articles about the Ashes and a strange phenomenon being exchanged so often. So what’s the big deal about a psychological edge? The Aussies have had the psychological edge over the Poms for 18 years. But after losses to Bangladesh, England and sharing the Natwest trophy which they should have won, the long-suffering Englishmen finally have the psychological edge over them. But Strauss and Trescothick have gone out cheap against McGrath and Lee. So maybe these two bowlers have the psychological edge. But wait a minute, apparently Simon Jones has a psychological edge over Hayden, again apparently, after their spat in the previous game. Hmmm…

So what is this thing and how could you lose/gain it in a few weeks what you haven’t/have had for a long time? So like any research-oriented goal-driven person who really wants to know…I googled it. And you expect probably a psychology site or even better, a shrink who explains it. Uh-uh. Pages 1, 2, and 3 of google search return mostly cricket, soccer and some rugby related articles. I think to myself, how could an individual oriented sport like tennis not be there. Didn’t Roger Federer just blast Hewitt and Roddick into despair? Finally I got through to an article from a sports psychologist. Here’s an extract,

“To give a person a psychological edge is to give them the mental strength and motivation to believe in their own skills and hence the ability to exploit the flaws of the opposing player”

Let’s take that definition and apply it to a team sport. For a team to have a psychological edge over another team would involve having them collectively have no doubts in their own ability and be able to consistently exploit the opposing team’s flaws. Hmm…that’s weird because the Natwest series for the teams in question had one win apiece, a washed out game and a tie. And to believe that Trescothick, Strauss, Ponting and Gillespie have no doubts going into the series is kinda hard. The way I see it, we finally have an Ashes contest where we don’t need to put contest in quotation marks anymore.

So anyway back to the psychological edge. Maybe it’s a thing commentators and cricket writers cook up to play up a series more than its worth. Maybe cricketers laugh about it in the confines of their dressing rooms. Maybe it’s something the bookies need to fix the odds of a cricket game…I don’t know. I do know that the only edge Mcgrath is looking for is the edge of an Englishman’s bat. Even better with three slips and a gully. You know what? I’ll give level 8 another shot. Those damn AI driven, computer animated gunmen have such a psychological edge over me.