It’s funny how the sporting gods dish out luck and failure.
Many great athletes have tried to work out why collapses occur on the run home in a major golf tournament or why a batsman with obvious talent ends a Test match with a pair.
Good fortune is also hard to calculate. Some batsmen get caught by a screamer while others give up absolute sitters that end up on the turf.
In each situation it’s what the athlete does with the luck or lack thereof that matters.
Some crumble while others use it as fuel for the motivational fire.
Yesterday, those same sporting gods were busy dishing out everyone’s lot.
Phil Hughes needed everything to go right in his Test return.
Twelve months ago his shortcomings were brutally exposed by a New Zealand attack relishing the prospect of inflicting more mental damage on the young left hander.
The familiar dismissal of “bowled Martin caught Guptill” had become the joke of the summer and Hughes wasn’t enjoying being the punch line.
It was his second crack at Test cricket and the flaws in his technique were too easily exposed.
Hughes would’ve dearly loved some luck at Bellerive last year, or indeed any other point throughout the summer, but luck wouldn’t have done him any favours.
Had luck intervened Hughes might not have been forced to go away and work on his technique.
He might not have changed or bettered himself.
After all, he proved that he could survive for a period of time with the bad habits entrenched in his game. The tour of South Africa in 2009 was proof of that.
Now, he has re-emerged a better batsman with a more conventional technique.
Luck smiled on him yesterday, but he couldn’t make the most of the second chance.
Hughes had made his way to 77 when he lashed at one outside his off-stump. He got a knick and the ball was caught by the wicketkeeper.
That should’ve been the end of things, but he was saved by the umpire calling a no-ball.
77 wouldn’t have been a bad start for a man under pressure to perform in his third crack at Test cricket, but against a toothless Sri Lankan attack, a century was on offer.
It’s why, when after chopping one on for 86 straight after tea, he trudged off Bellerive Oval wondering what might’ve been.
Days like this don’t come around too often.
It was a solid re-emergence from a player many had written off, but the chance to make an emphatic statement went begging.
It looks like he won’t be short of chances to cement his spot in the Australian side.
He’s no longer a technique time bomb waiting to explode, but more a composed figure at the crease that punishes the bad ball with ease.
Just moments after Hughes’ slice of fortune on 77, his partner was dismissed.
Shane Watson pushed at one outside of off stump and Mahela Jayawardene, who was at second slip, threw himself at the gaping hole at third slip, stuck out his right hand and pulled off a spectacular catch.
Watson finished with 30 to his name and no-doubt with that little nagging feeling persisting about his ability to turn a start into a big score.
Had Jayawardene not snaffled one of the catches of the summer Watson might’ve felt more at home at number four in the Australian line-up, but for now the questions will persist.
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