Michael Vaughan is awesome

[R_D]

It's always a case of has been, though. As Rob says, no-one can have luck pre-guranteed to them, regardless of how long they've been being lucky for.

Someone like Virender Sehwag, for instance, has actually had his luck dry-up of late (or maybe it's just that he hasn't faced Pakistan for a while...). Let's hope it's permanent - Trescothick, too, had his luck dry-up for a time, but it returned with a vengence in summer 2005.

obviousaly all the runs scored by Sehwag have been by pure luck

So let me get this right.. Rich and Tom are saying that most of big innings by Collingwood are just by luck ?

 

[Swervy]

If a batsman getting dropped is lucky, is the fielder who dropped the ball 'unlucky'?

Or could it be in that individual match up during that delivery, the overall performance of the fielding team didn't match up...its not luck.

Surely a measure of how well a batsman has played is the ability to make the other teams mistakes count big. I don't have a problem with someone saying Player A batted brilliantly despite being dropped on 0. He took his chances....its what cricket is about.

 

[Tom Halsey]

If a batsman getting dropped is lucky, is the fielder who dropped the ball 'unlucky'?

No, he would have ****ed it up. The bowler might have been unlucky, though.

 

[Swervy]

No, he would have ****ed it up. The bowler might have been unlucky, though.

depends on whether you see the bowling/fielding aspect of the game as a team thing or an individual thing. Considering the majority of wickets a bowler takes (probably without exception for bowlers who have say taken more than 20 test wickets in a career) is with the aid of a team mate, then really, that side of things should be considered a team thing.

If that is the case, then it is purely a match-up between the bowling/fielding team and the batsman for any given ball in a match. If the fielder drops it, then the balance of skill during that delivery favours the batsman. They won that little battle.

Is a batsman unlucky to get caught out with a catch that might be caught one time in a thousand? It works both ways really, and it evens up pretty quickly.

If a batsman gets an inside edge that just clips the leg stump, he is considered unlucky. If that ball had have been half an inch to the right of the stump, he would have been considered lucky. Really, neither is correct...and its the same with dropped catches, it happens to everyone.

 

[Tom Halsey]

depends on whether you see the bowling/fielding aspect of the game as a team thing or an individual thing. Considering the majority of wickets a bowler takes (probably without exception for bowlers who have say taken more than 20 test wickets in a career) is with the aid of a team mate, then really, that side of things should be considered a team thing.

If that is the case, then it is purely a match-up between the bowling/fielding team and the batsman for any given ball in a match. If the fielder drops it, then the balance of skill during that delivery favours the batsman. They won that little battle.

Is a batsman unlucky to get caught out with a catch that might be caught one time in a thousand? It works both ways really, and it evens up pretty quickly.

It is the bowler who created the chance, though.

If the fielder drops it, the batsman might have won that little battle but only due to the fielder's ineptitude, not due to any great skill on his part.

1/1000 ctahces don't happen very often by definition. Luck will even out after a while, and as I said to Scaly, if Collingwood ends his career averaging 45 after 100 Tests then fair play to him, but in his case the luck hasn't evened out yet, IMO.

 

[Richard]

On the luck thing, some players are "lucky" players, or at least look that way. Mark Taylor used to look a bit lucky, coz he'd play and miss a fair bit. But then, I heard it said that he was "good" at playing and missing, because he tended to play the first line of hte ball, and not adjust his stroke towards it as it moved.

Playing and missing is totally different to being dropped or given not-out incorrectly - because you can deliberately play and miss. The other two are to do with Umpires and fielders and the batsman cannot have any influence on either.

 

[Richard]

obviousaly all the runs scored by Sehwag have been by pure luck

And where exactly did I say that?

So let me get this right.. Rich and Tom are saying that most of big innings by Collingwood are just by luck ?

Err, yes, there haven't been that many, it's not remotely hard to get the head around.

 

[Richard]

Surely a measure of how well a batsman has played is the ability to make the other teams mistakes count big. I don't have a problem with someone saying Player A batted brilliantly despite being dropped on 0. He took his chances....its what cricket is about.

Apart from the fact that this doesn't apply to the Collingwood case because all the 3 examples in question have involved multiple let-offs...

Yes, of course someone who has batted brilliantly (for say, 140) after (not despite) being dropped on 0 still deserves some credit, but nothing changes the fact that had he not been dropped - something which he had no say in happening - he'd not have had the chance to play brilliantly.

 

[Richard]

Is a batsman unlucky to get caught out with a catch that might be caught one time in a thousand? It works both ways really, and it evens up pretty quickly.

A batsman is indeed a bit unfortunate if he gets out to a one-in-1000 catch, but as Halz says, by definition such a thing happens exceptionally rarely. And when it does, as with getting a RUD (remember what that stands for...? - no sarcasm in smiley) if such a thing happens you say "well played". Being dropped is totally different and IMO the two cannot be equated to inverses.

If a batsman gets an inside edge that just clips the leg stump, he is considered unlucky. If that ball had have been half an inch to the right of the stump, he would have been considered lucky. Really, neither is correct...and its the same with dropped catches, it happens to everyone.

Indeed. It's just cricket. That sort of thing might be about even - even if it's not, there's still some batting skill involved in the difference between the two (unlike when an easy catch is dropped) in that the nearer to the full face of the bat you hit it, the thicker the edge and the less likely it is to hit the stumps. But I don't think that situation bears any resemblence to dropped (and caught) catches anyway.

 

[Mister Wright]

Playing and missing is totally different to being dropped or given not-out incorrectly - because you can deliberately play and miss. The other two are to do with Umpires and fielders and the batsman cannot have any influence on either.

Honestly. When do batsmen ever deliberately play & miss?

 

[Richard]

Honestly. When do batsmen ever deliberately play & miss?

Marcus Trescothick and Adrian Griffith both do\did it loads.

 

[Mister Wright]

Marcus Trescothick and Adrian Griffith both do\did it loads.

IYO.

 

[Richard]

Nah, in everyone who watches' opinion.

For some batsmen, deliberately playing and missing is just another way of leaving.

 

[Goughy]

If its deliberate then it is not a 'play and miss', as you never intended to hit the ball.

It is just a leave with the bat coming through a line a distance away from the ball. Trescothick does do it, as did Jack Russell.

 

[Richard]

I'm presuming that's what Cameron was alluding to with Mark Taylor, because I seem to remember him doing that on the few occasions I watched him, too.

 

[Burgey]

I'm presuming that's what Cameron was alluding to with Mark Taylor, because I seem to remember him doing that on the few occasions I watched him, too.

I think, sadly, that Tubby wasn't doing it deliberately, but he seemed to have a happy knack of playing and missing, rather than edging - maybe it's just the difference between being in form and out of form.

Just to change the subject if I may for a moment, Taylor and Healy retired at roughly the same time, and did so as two of Australia's best. I mean, if you look at the theory re. bowling going downhill in the 00s from where it was in the 90s, Taylor faced some pretty damn good new ball attacks in his career and ended up with a decent record. His captaincy is also regarded as the most tactically astute by an Aussie since Ian Chappell, maybe even since Benaud. Healy for his part was a great keeper and a handy no. 7 at test level.

Yet, within 12 months of their going, they weren't even missed. It speaks volumes fo the depth we had coming through at that time, doesn't it? Within 2 tests Gilly had clearly surpassed Healy in everyone's minds, and Hayden came along not long after Taylor and established himself. They lost their skipper (and opener), as well as their 'keeper, and didn't miss a beat. I wonder how many teams over the years have done that? I suppose Windies in the 80s when Lloyd as captain left not long after Derrick Murray and Viv took over with Dujon coming in, but it can't have happened that often over the years, can it?

 

[Richard]

Deryck Murray left the side a good couple of years before Dujon debuted, TBH - and Dujon played as a specialist bat his first couple of games. The man in the interim was David Murray, who subsequently decided on a Rebel tour.

Lloyd, though, left a good while after Murray, in 1985, and the side started to go downhill very soon (a single series) after that (though it was the loss of Holding and Garner that was the real big catalyst). Probably never has a side seen the sustained depth that we've had from Australia in the last 18 years.

And yes, IMO Mark Taylor is a very, very underrated batsman. Probably not quite up there with Australia's very best but better than both Hayden and Langer-the-opener, certainly. Probably better than Slater too, though Slater is one of my favourite Australian batsmen.

Ian Healy, too, was a bit more than a "handy number-seven" for quite some time, too. He was a damn superb lower-order batsman for much of his career, and also pretty hopeless at the start of it.

 

[marc71178]

Haha. No, it's not. Nor would I seek to use it.

Probably not wise of me to go throwing stuff into the public domain.

Or rather making things up to and discredit me...

 

[Matt79]

Most of the last couple of pages makes me think of this picture for some reason...

 

[Scaly piscine]

You haven't been banned so you have gotten away with it.