Successful by luck: The best cricket post I have read in some time

This post has some usual ROTFL lines (especially on Zaltzman's fave Kamran). Typical Zaltzman....and a bit more than that. It's like a good Rajkumar Hirani film. His examples (starting with Morgan's success last week, and going back to famous ones) and pointers therein on the specific role played by luck were splendid. His thoughts on Pietersen's hundred in the 5th Ashes Test of 2005 took me straight back to similar feelings that I (and probably many others) had after that match...

The completeness of that post comes with his take on the other side of the coin:

"Similarly, there must be many of one-, two- and three-cap Test players who ended their careers thinking, “If only that usually incompetent fielder hadn’t pulled off that uncharacteristic one-handed diving catch”, or “If only that umpire hadn’t been certifiably blind”. Scorecards do not record luck.

Perhaps 1920s batsman Jack MacBryan would have turned out to be a surprise Test-match great. He had an unlucky Test career. In his only Test, in 1924, it rained for much of the first day, then for all of the rest of the match. MacBryan did not bat. And failed, in his 66.5 overs of fielding, to convince the selectors that he had what it takes to succeed at the highest level. Perhaps they spotted some flaw in his technique whilst he was playing pretend shots in the covers in between balls."