cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

, a duck is a batsman's dismissal with a score of

zero 0 (zero) is a number representing an empty quantity. In place-value notation such as the Hindu–Arabic numeral system, 0 also serves as a placeholder numerical digit, which works by multiplying digits to the left of 0 by the radix, usual ...

. A batsman being dismissed off their first delivery faced is known as a golden duck.

Etymology

The term is a shortening of the term "duck's egg", the latter being used long before Test cricket began. When referring to the Prince of Wales' (the future

Edward VII Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910. The second child and eldest son of Queen Victoria an ...

) score of nought on 17 July 1866, a contemporary newspaper wrote that the Prince "retired to the royal pavilion on a 'duck's egg' ".LONDON from THE DAILY TIMES CORRESPONDENT, 25 July 1866 can be viewed a
Paper's past
/ref> The name is believed to come from the shape of the number "0" being similar to that of a

duck Duck is the common name for numerous species of waterfowl in the family Anatidae. Ducks are generally smaller and shorter-necked than swans and geese, which are members of the same family. Divided among several subfamilies, they are a form ...

egg An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the a ...

, as in the case of the

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

slang term "goose-egg" popular in baseball and the tennis term "love", derived – according to one theory – from French ''l'œuf'' ("the egg"). The Concise Oxford Dictionary still cites "duck's egg" as an alternative version of the term.

Significant ducks

The first duck in a

Test match Test match in some sports refers to a sporting contest between national representative teams and may refer to: * Test cricket * Test match (indoor cricket) * Test match (rugby union) * Test match (rugby league) * Test match (association football) ...

was made in the first Test, between

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

and

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

in March 1877, when

Ned Gregory Edward James Gregory (29 May 1839 – 22 April 1899) was an Australian cricketer who played in the first recognised Test in 1877 between Australia and England in Melbourne. Ned was the father of a famous Australian cricketer, Syd Gregory, and b ...

was caught by

Andrew Greenwood Andrew Greenwood (20 August 1847 – 12 February 1889) was an English professional cricketer who played for Yorkshire County Cricket Club from 1869 to 1880. He was born and died in Huddersfield, West Riding of Yorkshire. He was a member of the E ...

off the bowling of James Lillywhite. As of 2017, the record for the most ducks in Test cricket is held by

West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greater A ...

player

Courtney Walsh Courtney Andrew Walsh OJ (born 30 October 1962) is a former Jamaican cricketer who represented the West Indies from 1984 to 2001, captaining the West Indies in 22 Test matches. He is a fast bowler and considered one of the all-time greats, best ...

, who was out for nought on 43 occasions, while the overall first-class record is 156, set by

Worcestershire Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a county in the West Midlands of England. The area that is now Worcestershire was absorbed into the unified Kingdom of England in 927, at which time it was constituted as a county (see H ...

and England player

Reg Perks Reginald Thomas David Perks (4 October 1911 – 22 November 1977) was an English cricketer who played in two Test matches in 1939, and was the mainstay of Worcestershire's bowling for a long period from the middle 1930s until the middle 1950s ...

. One particularly high-profile example of a duck came in 1948, when Don Bradman was playing his final Test match for Australia, against England at

The Oval The Oval, currently known for sponsorship reasons as the Kia Oval, is an international cricket ground in Kennington, located in the borough of Lambeth, in south London. The Oval has been the home ground of Surrey County Cricket Club since ...

. In Australia's first innings, Bradman was

bowled In cricket, the term bowled has several meanings. First, is the act of propelling the ball towards the wicket defended by a batsman. Second, it is a method of dismissing a batsman, by hitting the wicket with a ball delivered by the bowler. (Th ...

for a duck by

Eric Hollies William Eric Hollies (5 June 1912 – 16 April 1981) was an English cricketer, who is mainly remembered for taking the wicket of Donald Bradman for a duck in Bradman's final Test match innings, in which he needed only four runs for a Test aver ...

, causing his Test average to fall from 101.39 to 99.94; had he scored just four runs, his average would have been 100. As things turned out, Australia won the match by an innings, and so Bradman did not get to bat a second time (had he batted, he would have needed at least 104 runs if dismissed or at least four runs if

not out In cricket, a batter is not out if they come out to bat in an innings and have not been dismissed by the end of an innings. The batter is also ''not out'' while their innings is still in progress. Occurrence At least one batter is not out at t ...

to get his average back to 100). In the first Test of Australia's tour of India in 1986, with the cumulative scores tied, Indian tailender Maninder Singh was trapped LBW by

Greg Matthews Gregory Richard John Matthews (born 15 December 1959) is a New South Wales and Australian former cricket all rounder ( off-spin bowler and left-handed batsman) who is now a television cricket commentator. When Australian cricket was in the d ...

for a four ball duck, ensuring just the second

tied Test A Tied Test is a Test cricket match in which the side batting second is bowled out in the fourth innings, with scores level. This is a very rare result; only two ties have occurred in the 2,000 Tests played since 1877. The first was in 1960 and t ...

in Test Cricket history. Indian

all-rounder An all-rounder is a cricketer who regularly performs well at both batting and bowling. Although all bowlers must bat and quite a handful of batsmen do bowl occasionally, most players are skilled in only one of the two disciplines and are consi ...

Ajit Agarkar Ajit Bhalchandra Agarkar (born 4 December 1977) is a former Indian cricketer and a commentator. He has represented India in more than 200 international matches in all three formats of the game. He is the third highest wicket-taker for India i ...

earned the unfortunate nickname " Bombay Duck" after being dismissed for ducks five consecutive times in test matches against

. In a 1913 match against

Glastonbury Glastonbury (, ) is a town and civil parish in Somerset, England, situated at a dry point on the low-lying Somerset Levels, south of Bristol. The town, which is in the Mendip district, had a population of 8,932 in the 2011 census. Glastonbur ...

, Huish and Langport's batsmen all scored ducks for a total of zero runs. A similar occurrence in

indoor cricket Indoor cricket is a variant of and shares many basic concepts with cricket. The game is most often played between two teams each consisting of six or eight players.Victorian Cricket Association Umpires and Scorers Association Association Newsletter, Vol. 15 No. 5, 2008–2009 season, p11 but in some regions that term has an alternative definition. If the batsman is one of the openers, that is said to be a titanium duck.

Pair

To be dismissed for nought in both innings of the same two-innings match is to be dismissed for a pair, because the two noughts together are thought to resemble a pair of

spectacles Glasses, also known as eyeglasses or spectacles, are vision eyewear, with lenses (clear or tinted) mounted in a frame that holds them in front of a person's eyes, typically utilizing a bridge over the nose and hinged arms (known as temples o ...

; the longer form is occasionally used. To be dismissed first ball in ''both'' innings (''i.e.'', two golden ducks) is to suffer the indignity of making a ''

king pair This is a general glossary of the terminology used in the sport of cricket. Where words in a sentence are also defined elsewhere in this article, they appear in italics. Certain aspects of cricket terminology are explained in more detail in cr ...

''.

Related expressions

Two consecutive pairs, or, more generally, four consecutive ducks, are referred to as an ''Audi''. The expression alludes to the

German car manufacturer The automotive industry in Germany is one of the largest employers in the world, with a labor force of over 857,336 (2016) working in the industry. Being home to the modern car, the German automobile industry is regarded as the most competiti ...

, the logo of which is four linked rings. A player who has been dismissed for three consecutive ducks and not yet scored in a further consecutive innings is said to be "on an Audi". A player who has completed an Audi and is yet to score in yet another consecutive innings is said to be "on an Olympic", an expression alluding to the five interlocking "Olympic rings". In Test cricket, three players have completed an Olympic:

Bob Holland Robert George Holland (19 October 1946 – 17 September 2017) was a New South Wales and Australian cricketer. He was, because of his surname, nicknamed "Dutchy". Holland, who spent the majority of his cricketing life in Newcastle, was a late ...

(1985),

(1999–2000) and Mohammad Asif (2006).

References

{{reflist Cricket terminology

Etymology

Significant ducks

Pair

Related expressions

See also

References