list of batsman who you generally consider to be lucky/ unlucky

[Napier16]

Lucky.

Symonds (if he scores anything more than 20 you know it's included at least one let off for every twenty or so runs)
Collingwood (maybe umpires admire his grittyness)
Pietersen (although it's lessened up over the past year or so)
Trescothick (any hundred he made you can automatically assume included a plumb LBW and dropped catch)
Cook (About his first five chances he offered went down to start his career)

Unlucky.

Tendulkar( had any number of ridiculous LBW decisions against him)
Lara, (see above but also including phantom caught behinds.)

Interesting how those two are also generally considered to be the two best batsman of recent times, yet have suffered from bad luck rather than the possibly expected benefit of the doubt.

Will add more when I think of them but that's the initial candidates which spring to mind.

 

[Richard]

Unlucky batsmen are exceptionally rare. Virtually no batsman over a long career will have more bad luck than good.

Plenty of batsmen have short periods of getting unlucky though. Tendulkar of recent times was one. Nasser Hussain of 2000/01 was another. Flintoff in 2002 had not a little - given out incorrectly one innings, run-out at the bowler's end in the next.

Lara actually had quite a few let-offs in his career in the part which I watched (basically from 2001/02 onwards), including several before he got these bad out decisions people remember so well. I'd not be surprised if he tended to be a bit more lucky than most. He still played many superlative chanceless knocks though.

 

[GIMH]

Strauss one for the unlucky column IMO

 

[Richard]

In Australia in 2006/07, most certainly. More drastically than most ever are. 3 bad decisions in a row is extreme by any standards.

Had another in the opening Test of the SA series of course.

 

[zaremba]

Nasser Hussain of 2000/01 was another.

That was the worst run of bad luck that I can remember. In one match he was given LBW off his bat in one innings, and caught behind off his pad in the other. And of course he got the worst grubber of all time when Carl Hooper had him LBW to a good length ball that hit him on the toe.

 

[GIMH]

Yeah though his Test career was built on a ton against India where he should have been given out when on 0 IIRC

 

[zaremba]

Yeah though his Test career was built on a ton against India where he should have been given out when on 0 IIRC

True. I'm not going to talk about luck evening itself out, because that way madness lies

 

[Richard]

Yeah though his Test career was built on a ton against India where he should have been given out when on 0 IIRC

Dunno about "built on", but yeah, that was what started it all.

I'd like to hope that had he not been given n\o in that innings he'd still have had the career. But of course of these things we can never be totally sure.

 

[Richard]

That was the worst run of bad luck that I can remember. In one match he was given LBW off his bat in one innings, and caught behind off his pad in the other. And of course he got the worst grubber of all time when Carl Hooper had him LBW to a good length ball that hit him on the toe.

That Hooper grubber was at Bourda in 1998 wasn't it?

Whether or not, that match was the most disgraceful case of toss-wins-match that I can think of.

 

[GIMH]

Dunno about "built on", but yeah, that was what started it all.

I'd like to hope that had he not been given n\o in that innings he'd still have had the career. But of course of these things we can never be totally sure.

Well, like myself you read and loved his book, it was 18 months ago now that I read it but didn't he himself say that he thought his career would never have got going had he been given out?

 

[Lillian Thomson]

That was the worst run of bad luck that I can remember. In one match he was given LBW off his bat in one innings, and caught behind off his pad in the other. And of course he got the worst grubber of all time when Carl Hooper had him LBW to a good length ball that hit him on the toe.

He had some shockers in Sri Lanka in 2001 but then he was out four times in one innings on his way to a century when one umpire gave absolutely nothing, including a straight forward caught and bowled from Hick off Murali.

 

[Richard]

Well, like myself you read and loved his book, it was 18 months ago now that I read it but didn't he himself say that he thought his career would never have got going had he been given out?

He certainly thought it was a possibility. And so it was. But neither he nor anyone else could have been certain. Maybe he'd have been given the next 2 Tests anyway and got the century he got in the Third Test that series anyway too.

 

[zaremba]

That Hooper grubber was at Bourda in 1998 wasn't it?

Whether or not, that match was the most disgraceful case of toss-wins-match that I can think of.

Yes actually the 1998 series is the series I was thinking of - the 2 decisions in one match that I referred to were in that series too. So he must have had 2 different dreadful bad trots. Poor chap.

 

[Richard]

He had some shockers in Sri Lanka in 2001 but then he was out four times in one innings on his way to a century when one umpire gave absolutely nothing, including a straight forward caught and bowled from Hick off Murali.

He had 2 bad decisions in the same Test in Pakistan in 2000/01, and was also hit on the elbow and forced to retire hurt (which isn't a saw-off, but is still not exactly desireable) in the previous game. Then he had at least 1 bad decision against him in the First Test in Sri Lanka later the same season. He then got some of it back in the Second Test as BC "should have retired 2 years ago" Cooray gave him not-out twice (not four times - though there may have been lbws) when he edged Murali to silly-point or short-leg, can't remember which.

One of those nice little "luck evening itself out" stories that does happen occasionally. What made it more ironic was that Hussain's nightmare run which incorporated dreadful batting in the whole summer of 2000 had been started by Cooray who gave him lbw to a delivery that he'd hit for four in South Africa in 1999/2000.

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

Wavell Hinds had a rough tour of England in 2000, IMS.

 

[Richard]

Indeed, rather Strauss-'06/07-esque in having 3 consecutive shockers in the middle of the series.

 

[fredfertang]

Colin Milburn - another night he might have left 5 minutes earlier, taken a different route, missed the artic altogether or even put his bloody seatbelt on - only saw him bat once and that was on television but his was one hell of a talent

 

[Richard]

Ah, Milburn and Redmond - unlucky in a whole different way. MAK Pataudi along the same lines too.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

Colin Milburn - another night he might have left 5 minutes earlier, taken a different route, missed the artic altogether or even put his bloody seatbelt on

On the other hand he might have been knocked down by a bus making the lost eye seem lucky.

 

[fredfertang]

On the other hand he might have been knocked down by a bus making the lost eye seem lucky.

Given his sad decline and relatively early demise fate may have been kinder had that been the outcome