Ah, The Duck – nothing troubles the scorers more, despite what any commentator may tell you. Especially if it is a quick one and you are still entering all the details of the previous wicket. A duck is almost as much of a symbol of non-batsmanship as scoring a century is of batting ability.
In 1996, Danny Morrison passed the record for most ducks in Test cricket amid a blaze of publicity and memorabilia. Bhagwat Chandrasekhar had held the record with 23 at that stage. Morrison subsequently passed the baton (if you will excuse the truly abysmal pun) to Courtney Walsh, who still holds the record with 43. Muttiah Murailtharan has been dismissed first ball for a duck on no fewer than 14 occasions in Test cricket.
But, what about ducks in first-class cricket? Reg Perks, of Worcestershire and England (twice, in 1939), collected 156 ducks in his first-class career, which is a record. Perks was not the world’s worst batsman: he scored 8956 runs, including 14 fifties, at an average of 12.20 in 595 first-class matches.
But a major candidate for champion duck maker in first-class cricket is Kevin Jarvis of Kent and Gloucestershire. Jarvis is the only batsman with over 100 dismissals in first-class cricket to have ducks as more than 50% of his dismissals. In his 199 first-class innings he was not out 87 times and made 59 ducks, which represents 52.69% of the total innings in which he was dismissed. In all, Jarvis scored 403 runs at an average of 3.59. He did, of course, make up for this by taking 674 wickets. He reached 20 for the first, and only, time in his 255th first-class match (Gloucestershire v Hampshire at Portsmouth in 1989) and played only 5 more matches before retiring.
And what of Seymour Clark? He played 5 first-class matches for Somerset (all in 1930) and in 9 innings (two of which were not outs) he did not score a run. He did not take a wicket either. He was a wicketkeeper and presumably must have been a very good one just to get a game.
Then there is the 1, the much-neglected score. If a century is a mark of batting excellence and a duck is a mark of batting ineptitude, then a 1 must be the non-batsman’s equivalent of 99. I briefly considered nominating the word ‘drake’ for ones to go with ducks for noughts. But it would probably be considered inappropriate, in these egalitarian times, for the male of the species to represent a higher value than the female.
The most dismissals for 1 in Test cricket is 12 by Javagal Srinath and Glenn McGrath.
Three players have been dismissed for 1 eleven times in Tests: Curtly Ambrose, Courtney Walsh and, surprisingly, Rod Marsh. And Adam Sanford was an impressive 1-maker. He was dismissed eight times for 1 out of his 15 Test dismissals (53.33%), including each of his last 4 innings. Then there’s Walter Reader-Blackton. In addition to having a name that was almost as long as his first-class career (8 matches for Derbyshire between 1914 and 1921), he was also the first player to be dismissed for 1 in five consecutive first-class innings.
And another world record for Shane Warne. He has been dismissed for 2 more often than anyone else in Test cricket – 11 times.
Posted by: Jonathan Ellis at November 9, 2007 3:12 PM
What always used to amaze me, knowing Courtney Walsh's propensity for ducks, was that he used to bat at number TEN in the order, ahead of Pat Patterson.
And then I saw Patterson bat. And realised just why it was that he was possibly the only person on the planet to bat lower than Walsh...
Posted by: Tushar Thakkar at November 9, 2007 4:12 PM
Now that is one blog I am gonna love.... wierd stats, that is what I live for :). But seriously, I think this is a great initiative and looking forward to some real insightful analysis!!
Posted by: Srini Ratnam at November 9, 2007 9:47 PM
It is so interesting read about the 0s and 1s and getting into record books in a dubious way. I was wondering who are of the best batsmen who have scored most '0's? The criteria I am looking for are some one must have played at least 50 tests, must have minimum batting average of 30 and have scored at least one test century. Wonder who would be in the top 10 zero maker in that group!
Please keep the columns coming!
Posted by: Grinny at November 10, 2007 1:08 AM
I was shocked to read some of the people who have scored a load of ducks, makes you wonder really.
Good blog again, btw, have you seen www.simplycricket.net? Has some nice info on this sort of stat!
Grinny
Posted by: David Barry at November 10, 2007 8:11 AM
It amuses me that scores of 4 and 5 are more common than scores of 3 (over all Tests). It seems that a single and a lucky edged four is easier to get than a one and a two.
Posted by: Jeff Few at November 10, 2007 12:07 PM
As for the most test ducks amongst recognised batsmen (using your 50+ tests, 30+ average, 1+ tons to describe 'recognised'), im pretty sure its either Mike Atherton or Sanath Jayasuria
Posted by: John Gibson at November 10, 2007 12:20 PM
We all know about the people who have been dismissed for the most ducks in their test careers, but what about including not out noughts for total zeros. Does this throw up any new names? My favourite batsmen - Chris Martin. Love to see him succeed by failing.
Posted by: David Barry at November 10, 2007 2:47 PM
Qualification of 1000 runs at an average of over 30, the Test batsmen with the most ducks are: Atapattu 22, Steve Waugh 22, Mike Atherton 20, Mark Waugh 19.
Posted by: John Price at November 10, 2007 3:54 PM
Courtney Walsh wasn't actually that bad a tail-ender - his number of ducks is more a reflection of a very long career. In first class cricket he scored 8 fifties and over 4500 runs at an average of over 11. There are very many worse records than that.
Posted by: Craig Bowie at November 11, 2007 12:08 AM
I would expect that Marvan Atapattu would be pretty high up the list for ducks by a serious batsman. In fact, he was probably a fair way up that list after three Tests.
Posted by: Alex Holman at November 11, 2007 5:22 AM
Srini, I think Marvan Atapattu might just top your list. 22 ducks in 154 innings, including 4 pairs. And yet he's scored six double-centuries! Steve Waugh also has 22 ducks, but from a lot more innings.
Posted by: Daniel at November 12, 2007 1:46 AM
Chris Martin, if given enough innings, will become the worst batsman ever. His average is hovering at 2.06. If you ever need to call him just dial 0800 00 00 00.
Posted by: Jim Morrison at November 12, 2007 9:00 PM
Look up a guy named Peter Visser who played for Central Districts (NZ) and finished with an average of 0.91 after 19 matches. His career scores were 0, 0, 8, 0, 0, 0, 0 not out, 0, 0 not out, 0 not out, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0 not out, 2 and 0 not out. 14 scoreless innings, 8 of them out, from 17 innings. Not bad.
Posted by: Kay Gemini at November 13, 2007 4:30 AM
Yet another stats page for insatiable cricket-mad people. The proposed term "drake"should be for a single scoring stroke (whether a proper cricketing stroke or an unintended edge) rather than a score of 1. A single hit and then out. That may be a difficult statistic to pull out - but IMHO a proper way to assess batting skills.
Posted by: Junaid Naseer at November 13, 2007 5:43 AM
Ah finally...someone considers the not so talented people in cricket but who still manage to make the a whole lot of fun !
Posted by: venbas at November 13, 2007 10:13 PM
What about the Bombay Duck aka Ajit Agarkar? I thought he might also be somewhere in the list. He also has the weird combination of fastest 50 by an indian, a hundred at Lord's to add to a bucketload of ducks.
Y Anantha Narayanan has over 35 years of IT background. Over the past 15 years, he has been concentrating on Cricket analysis and software development. He has been involved with StumpVision, Wisden, Hallmark Software and his own site www.thirdslip.com during this period.
David Barry was cricket-starved when teaching English in France, and
study of cricket stats was his only way to stay sane. He is now back
in Brisbane, Australia, and working towards a PhD in Physics. He once
played for the worst team in the G-division of Muscat's cricket
league.
After doing an MBA in marketing and working in an advertising agency, S Rajesh decided that his skills might be put to better use by number-crunching on cricket. He hasn’t regretted that decision in the last six years, and edits the Numbers Game column on cricinfo.com every Friday.
Andrew Samson had his moments with bat and ball, once scoring 43 and taking 3 for 14 with his legbreaks, but he was much better at arithmetic, which explains why he is where he is today. Andrew has been keeping cricket stats since the days when it used to be done with pen and paper, and has been involved in scoring/stats for Radio and TV since 1987. He has been Cricket South Africa's official statistician since1994.
A former scientist and occasional TV quiz champion, Charles Davis now works full time at sports statistics in Melbourne.
His only real contribution to the Test record books came at age 4, when he formed part of the record 90,800 crowd
who saw West Indies at the MCG in 1961. He has two books to his credit, and claims to be the only cricket statistician
ever who has been quoted in the New York Times and in Australian Federal Parliament on the same day. Not to be
confused with the West Indian batsman Charlie Davis, especially in terms of ability.
Having just taken early retirement as a Mathematics teacher in Hobart, Ric
Finlay now fully devotes his time to recording cricket, both past and
present, for the popular CSW cricket database, along with his colleague
David Fitzgerald (www.tastats.com.au). His interest in the game is
inversely proportional to his ability as a player, but he did once score a
century after being dropped at 3 and running out three of his team-mates.
His first memory of international cricket is the 1962-63 MCC tour of
Australia, described as one of the most boring ever. Totally fascinated, he
was instantly hooked, and has never looked back. Author of three books on
cricket of a historical nature, he has provided statistics and scored for
radio and television cricket coverage since 1983.
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