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

[Richard]

"of probability" & "on this particular topic" are superfluous in your second sentence, as you'll doubtless discover if you stick around and expose yourself to enough of Dicko.

Dale Brumby's constant attempts at condescending comments in my direction are becoming distinctly tiresome.

 

[NZTailender]

Well yeah but any lambastation is unfair for you. And he has been a lucky batsman of times, but probably not these days (hasn't had much if any in the last year) all that much more than anyone else.

If we're talking about dropped catches and umpiring decisions I personally don't believe Collingwood has had it better or worse than most batsmen in international cricket.

Despite what some people think, people don't have reserves of luck that get used to their advantage that then run out which means they become 'unlucky'.

Dropped catches and umpiring decisions fall into that beautiful grey area otherwise known as human fallibility.

 

[Richard]

If we're talking about dropped catches and umpiring decisions I personally don't believe Collingwood has had it better or worse than most batsmen in international cricket.

Neither do I these days, as I say he's not had any real luck the last 10 months or so. But he had lots in the summers of 2006 and 2007. He's far from unique in having a short period of extreme good fortune though, and as I say - over his career I don't think he's at the current time been any more lucky than most batsmen are.

Despite what some people think, people don't have reserves of luck that get used to their advantage that then run out which means they become 'unlucky'.

Would love to know who thinks that TBH.

Dropped catches and umpiring decisions fall into that beautiful grey area otherwise known as human fallibility.

Unfortunate ones, that can hopefully in time be decreased considerably.

 

[NZTailender]

Neither do I these days, as I say he's not had any real luck the last 10 months or so. But he had lots in the summers of 2006 and 2007. He's far from unique in having a short period of extreme good fortune though, and as I say - over his career I don't think he's at the current time been any more lucky than most batsmen are.

But I guess you'll never think he's test class.

Would love to know who thinks that TBH.

I think people who believe in luck think some people have it and some people don't.

FTR, I think you can have a 'lucky' or 'unlucky' incident - i.e. a heavy object falling and missing you by centimetres I would say is "lucky" or a "stroke of luck".
Here we can get into a debate about what is luck and what isn't, but I'd rather not and I don't think anyone else wants to either.
Simply put, a lot dropped catches and umpiring mistakes are coincidence in a short period, not a batsman being lucky.

Unfortunate ones, that can hopefully in time be decreased considerably.

Through technology, coaching umpires better and coaching players more in catching/fielding, I would hope to see a decrease in this too and a generally higher quality of cricket. But you can never, ever, completely remove dropped catches and umpiring mistakes from the game (except for introducing robots into it...).
Until then, you can't really blame batsmen for capitalising on mistakes made by fielders or umpires (or blame the fielders capitalising on a bad decision by the umpire causing the batsman to be out).

 

[Richard]

But I guess you'll never think he's test class.

Probably not, but you never know.

I think people who believe in luck think some people have it and some people don't.

FTR, I think you can have a 'lucky' or 'unlucky' incident - i.e. a heavy object falling and missing you by centimetres I would say is "lucky" or a "stroke of luck".
Here we can get into a debate about what is luck and what isn't, but I'd rather not and I don't think anyone else wants to either.

Well, rather like the edge that goes past the stumps and someone says "that's lucky" and the edge that crashes into the stumps and someone says "that's unlucky", I'd say you could suggest having a piano falling from the sky onto you could be classed as pretty unlucky TBH.

For a batsman, I'd simply say that a let-off is a big slice of luck, there are obviously other smaller slices, but of course there will be differences of opinion. Rather like there are differences of opinion on whether the front-foot no-ball rule should revert to the back-foot no-ball rule.

Simply put, a lot dropped catches and umpiring mistakes are coincidence in a short period, not a batsman being lucky.

How on Earth aren't they both things? Luck is coincidence, that's the whole point of it.

Through technology, coaching umpires better and coaching players more in catching/fielding, I would hope to see a decrease in this too and a generally higher quality of cricket. But you can never, ever, completely remove dropped catches and umpiring mistakes from the game (except for introducing robots into it...).

Of course you can't completely remove them and never will be able to, but I think both are at an unacceptably high level at the current time and have been for quite a while.

Until then, you can't really blame batsmen for capitalising on mistakes made by fielders or umpires (or blame the fielders capitalising on a bad decision by the umpire causing the batsman to be out).

Who blamed them? It's good play to do so. But it's also not as good play as scoring runs without the need of such let-offs.

 

[Julian87]

Unlucky: Damien Martyn

And thinking more deeply about it, I can't really call an international batsman "lucky".

 

[Richard]

You mean "unlucky", surely?

 

[Smith108]

Napier16

Napier has been lucky with all the press he's been recieving, a bit overrated IMO.