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 st ...
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 Multiplication, multiplying digits to the left of 0 by th ...
. 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 Death and state funeral of Edward VII, his death in 1910.
The second chil ...
) 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 ...
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 was made in the first Test, between
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...
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 ...
at
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 metro ...
caught
Caught is a method of dismissing a batsman in cricket. A batsman is out caught if the batsman hits the ball, from a legitimate delivery, with the bat, and the ball is caught by the bowler or a fielder before it hits the ground.
If the ball h ...
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 ...
off the bowling of
James Lillywhite
James Lillywhite (23 February 1842 – 25 October 1929) was an English Test cricketer and an umpire. He was the first ever captain of the English cricket team in a Test match, captaining two Tests against Australia in 1876–77, losing the fi ...
.
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 Greate ...
player Courtney Walsh, 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.
One particularly high-profile example of a duck came in 1948, when
Don Bradman
Sir Donald George Bradman, (27 August 1908 – 25 February 2001), nicknamed "The Don", was an Australian international cricketer, widely acknowledged as the greatest batsman of all time. Bradman's career Test batting average of 99.94 has b ...
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 for a duck by Eric Hollies, 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 ...
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 for a four ball duck, ensuring just the second tied Test 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 earned the unfortunate nickname " Bombay Duck" after being dismissed for ducks five consecutive times in test matches against
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...
.
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; 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''.
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 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 (1985), Ajit Agarkar (1999–2000) and Mohammad Asif (2006).
Hat-trick
A hat-trick or hat trick is the achievement of a generally positive feat three times in a match, or another achievement based on the number three.
Origin
The term first appeared in 1858 in cricket, to describe H. H. Stephenson taking three w ...
, the dismissal of three batsmen from three consecutive balls
*
Names for the number 0 in English
" Zero" is the usual name for the number 0 in English. In British English "nought" is also used. In American English "naught" is used occasionally for zero, but (as with British English) "naught" is more often used as an archaic word for nothing. ...
*
Pairs in test and first-class cricket
A ''pair'' in cricket refers to when a batsman is dismissed for a duck (without scoring) in both innings. It is called a 'king pair' if the batsman gets out for a golden duck (getting out on the first ball he faced) in both innings.
The name or ...