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Luckiest and Unluckiest batsmen

Zinzan

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Its often been said that good batsmen make their own luck, this is no doubt true to an extent. However as a long term cricket watcher I'm adament that some batsmen seem to have more than their share luck whereas others often of equal talent just have nothing go there way.

The lucky batsmen seem to always have close decisions go there way, will play and miss without ever seeming to get an edge, will have catches dropped and will often french-cut without ever playing on. While others will often edge a good ball early on or often manage to play-on with a french cut or often seem be dismissed by 50/50 umpiring decisions.

Lucky batsmen that spring to mind are:

Justin Langer (luckiest of all in my opinion) - great player don't get me wrong, but the amount of times he seems to play and miss, miscue into no-mans land never finding a fielder and get goods decisions in unbelievable.

Andrew Strauss (his test debut was unbelievable- in fact from memory he played on to his stumps and the bail somehow manged to stay in place)

Graham Gooch

Mark Taylor

Adam Gilchrist

Mark Richardson

Sanath Jayasuria

Graham Smith

Unlucky batsmen....

Stephen Fleming (always seems to edge a good ball early)

Damien Martyn

Micheal Vaughan

Mark Waugh


Whilst one could argue that through a players career these things even themselves out....I genuinely believe some batsmen just seem to have the luck of the Devil..


Any thoughts ? Have I missed any one obvious...

Plse note...I'm not downplaying the ability or skill of any of those above "lucky" batsmen. I just feel they seem to have more than there fair share of luck.
 

thierry henry

International Coach
Gilchrist is the luckiest batsman I have ever seen and probably ever will see. Every innings without fail he mis-hits aerial shots that fortuitously split fielders, plays and misses without ever getting an edge, and generally just hits the ball to places where he doesn't intend it to go. Plus he gets dropped a lot. Agree on Fleming as well.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Luckiest batsmen:
Matthew Hayden
Virender Sehwag
Adam Gilchrist
Marcus Trescothick
Michael Vaughan (in 2002)
Unluckiest:
Andrew Flintoff
Michael Vaughan (of late)

Note: this is for Tests only
Sidenote: for most batsmen, a career will go by and they will get quite a bit more good luck than bad. For some, they have a massive amount of luck, more than natural. For a tiny few, they have more bad than good. Those are exceptionally unusual.
 

Mr Mxyzptlk

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zinzan12 said:
Andrew Strauss (his test debut was unbelievable- in fact from memory he played on to his stumps and the bail somehow manged to stay in place)
Is that luckier than Brian Lara doing the same when pulling to break the world record (the first time)?
 

thierry henry

International Coach
re: Hayden. You've got a point Richard, as you said previously, Kyle Mills seems to get him out in the first over every time he plays him, yet never gets the decision.
 

Mr Mxyzptlk

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thierry henry said:
Gilchrist is the luckiest batsman I have ever seen and probably ever will see. Every innings without fail he mis-hits aerial shots that fortuitously split fielders, plays and misses without ever getting an edge, and generally just hits the ball to places where he doesn't intend it to go. Plus he gets dropped a lot. Agree on Fleming as well.
Gilchrist goes at it hard. That's to his credit. It's a catch it if you can mentality. More power to him for it. He does, after all, average over 50 (albeit dropping of late).
 

Mr Mxyzptlk

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My own brief contribution... Wavell Hinds in 2000 was EXTREMELY unlucky. He got a few very poor decisions on that tour of England. More as I recall.
 

steds

Hall of Fame Member
zinzan12 said:
Andrew Strauss (his test debut was unbelievable- in fact from memory he played on to his stumps and the bail somehow manged to stay in place)
:-O :blink: :wacko: :huh: He played one crap shot and got lucky.

Why don't we shoot him right now?
 

thierry henry

International Coach
Mr Mxyzptlk said:
Gilchrist goes at it hard. That's to his credit. It's a catch it if you can mentality. More power to him for it. He does, after all, average over 50 (albeit dropping of late).
"Going at it hard" is a bit of a cliche. He hits the ball in the air and regularly mistimes it. He often seems to have no idea where the ball is going. Most players would pick out a fielder much more regularly.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Mr Mxyzptlk said:
My own brief contribution... Wavell Hinds in 2000 was EXTREMELY unlucky. He got a few very poor decisions on that tour of England. More as I recall.
When clearly in good form, he got at least 3 questionable decisions.
Didn't help himself by looking so clueless against the inswingers, though.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
thierry henry said:
re: Hayden. You've got a point Richard, as you said previously, Kyle Mills seems to get him out in the first over every time he plays him, yet never gets the decision.
Well - he got it once (at The 'Gabba) but it's quite incredible, and inestimatably annoying, that someone who's exposed the flaws so clearly hasn't got the credit for it.
 

Mr Mxyzptlk

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Richard said:
When clearly in good form, he got at least 3 questionable decisions.
Didn't help himself by looking so clueless against the inswingers, though.
Still IMO it hurt his career for such a run to occur so early in the piece.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Quite possibly so.
Being forced to open almost all the time from then on hasn't helped, either.
 

Mr Mxyzptlk

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thierry henry said:
"Going at it hard" is a bit of a cliche. He hits the ball in the air and regularly mistimes it. He often seems to have no idea where the ball is going. Most players would pick out a fielder much more regularly.
I don't think anyone can say Gilchrist doesn't strike it powerfully. Even his edges and mistimed shots would take a whole lot of catching.
 

Mr Mxyzptlk

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Richard said:
Quite possibly so.
Being forced to open almost all the time from then on hasn't helped, either.
That's a lot to do with the start he got off to opening the batting. He and Sherwin Campbell were very impressive together in the fifth Test of the 2000/01 debacle.
 

thierry henry

International Coach
Richard said:
Well - he got it once (at The 'Gabba) but it's quite incredible, and inestimatably annoying, that someone who's exposed the flaws so clearly hasn't got the credit for it.
The ironic thing being that that was by far the worst LBW shout of the lot.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Mr Mxyzptlk said:
That's a lot to do with the start he got off to opening the batting. He and Sherwin Campbell were very impressive together in the fifth Test of the 2000/01 debacle.
Exactly - too many people judge too much on a single game.
It was very clear in the South Africa series that him opening wasn't working and he should have been put straight back to three after it.
Campbell, of course, should have had the chance to make that Test something other than the last in which he opened for West Indies.
 

Mr Mxyzptlk

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Richard said:
Campbell, of course, should have had the chance to make that Test something other than the last in which he opened for West Indies.
He was IMO unlucky when he earned a recall a couple years back and got injured. He wasn't the greatest players, but quite useful. Especially in ODIs he started to shine toward the end of his career.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
I'm sure I must have asked you before but presumably there is no further chance of further recall?
It ain't like anyone's laid claim on the opener's slot - most recently tried was a middle-order player with a First-Class average in the mid-20s.
 

Sehwag309

Banned
Dravid is really unlucky, dunno how many times he has got inside edges

Sehwag is lucky sure, but all that luck clogs up and he gets an BAT BEFORE WICKET from Bowden
 

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