You can wake up after your best ever sleep, look in the mirror and realise you've lost five pounds, accidentally rub against a lucky rabbit's foot and find a fifty pound note in your pocket. The stars can be in alignment, the moon in your house and the sun shining on your back.
Sometimes you can prepare as best you can, mentally and physically, focus on your processes and kick the laurels from underneath you.
Some days you can do all of the right things and it counts for nothing.
At Edgbaston, West Indies were bowled out for 168 and 137. In their first innings at Lord's they were all out for 123. But while they managed fewer runs in their most recent outing, it didn't spark the same sense of calamity as did their batting capitulation in the first Test. Perhaps there was still a lingering and softening glow remaining from their Headingley victory. Or perhaps a realisation that, today, they simply came up against some outstanding swing bowling in the sort of conditions that would have seriously tested the most resolute batsman's defence.
The ball may have been red but there were similarities to Edgbaston. There, the Windies struggled against a moving ball under artificial lights and for much of the first day of this final Test the lights were required at a gloomy Lord's.
Kraigg Brathwaite and Kyle Hope were victims of the new ball leaving them under the expert guidance of James Anderson as he hunted down the last few wickets needed to reach his teasing milestone - he was so difficult to play, it probably cost him the elusive 500th wicket. Could they have left better? Opening batsmen nick off to good outswingers. Such is the nature of the game at this level.
Shai Hope did the early hard work, was patient and looked set; he could arguably have played Toby Roland-Jones better and perhaps have avoided the thin edge. But there will be far worse shots and poorer innings than this.
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