🦆 The Duck Pond

A single fixture furnished the eleven with a single duck this week, but it is not one to be passed over lightly, for it marks the arrival of a new name upon our roll of the dismissed. House Team - C Pocock — batting at number nine against The Mote CC, at home, was clean bowled by K McAlpine and returned to the pavilion still to open his account. As this was his maiden innings in the club's colours, he thereby enters our exclusive fellowship in the most direct manner available to a batsman, a duck upon debut, which is as fine an introduction to adversity as the game affords. He takes his place 34th of 162 upon the all-time list, and by the happy coincidence of the calendar, finds his name already entered upon the Duck of the Year board for 1887 itself, a distinction few new men can claim so early in their innings, so to speak. In this modest company he stands level with A Barker of the 1885 season, another gentleman who required but a single innings to secure his egg and his own Duck of the Year honours, the two of them resting together 29th and 34th of 162. The Week in Summary One fixture, one duck, and a debutant claimed for the cause before he had fairly taken guard. No pairs were recorded, no families were dismissed together, and the ducks otherwise evaded capture entirely this week, a quiet showing by the club's usual standards, though a memorable one for Mr Pocock. Duck Hunting Season Leaderboard - C Pocock — 1 innings, 1 duck, 100 per cent - Jack Fryer — 1 innings, 1 duck, 100 per cent The eleven take the field again shortly, and the correspondent has every confidence that further contributions to this distinguished ledger will not be long delayed. Members are cordially invited to attend and, should fortune so decree, to add their own names to the honours board of the dismissed.

It is the melancholy duty of this correspondent to report that the ducks, so reliably plentiful in recent gazettes, evaded the net entirely this week. One fixture was played, and in it not a single member of our eleven had the misfortune, nor indeed the peculiar honour, of being sent back to the pavilion without troubling the scorer. The exclusive zero club, it seems, held no admissions this week — a state of affairs we note with as much surprise as satisfaction, for a quiet week for the Duck Club is, by its own curious logic, rather a disappointment to the chronicler. Whether this reflects a sudden and uncharacteristic soundness of technique among our batsmen, or merely the bowling of the opposition being insufficiently wicked, this correspondent cannot say. We shall content ourselves that the art of not scoring has, for one week only, gone unpractised at Linton Park. Duck Hunting Season Leaderboard The season's standings remain, naturally, undisturbed by a week in which no fresh candidates presented themselves. The roll currently reads thus: - Jack Fryer — 1 innings, 1 duck, a striking 100 per cent — a gentleman who has, thus far in 1887, contrived to be dismissed for a cipher on every single occasion the willow has been placed in his hands. Whether this represents misfortune, consistency, or a design too subtle for lesser minds to fathom, the committee declines to speculate, and merely records the figures as they stand. With but one name upon the list, Mr Fryer holds his position not merely at its head but as its entirety — a solitary sentinel atop a table he has, for want of competitors, no present need to defend. We trust the ducks are merely regrouping, and shall return in greater number at the next fixture, for a Duck Club without its ducks is a curious institution indeed. Members are cordially invited to attend, and — should fortune, or the lack of it, so favour them — to add their names to the roll in the customary fashion. The pavilion door, as ever, stands open in both directions.

A modest bulletin this week, the eleven having contrived but a single dismissal for a cipher in the one fixture played. Still, where there is a duck to be recorded, the Club shall record it with the ceremony it deserves. 1st XI Number eleven Jack Fryer, sent in last as is customary for the lower order, was caught by F W Franks off the bowling of W F Best without so much as troubling the scorer. This marks his third career duck in fourteen innings, placing him thirteenth of the one hundred and fifty-five names on the Club's roll of honour — a respectable, if unenviable, standing among such distinguished company. He faced at least one delivery before his downfall, so no golden egg is to be entered against his name this time, merely a duck of the ordinary, workmanlike variety. By happy coincidence of the calendar, it was on this very day in 1881 that no fewer than eight of the Club's forebears — F Danells, C Fryer, W Wilson, J Mallard, W H Fryer, W White, and W Eggar among them — each made a duck of their own against Collier Street CC. Mr Fryer may take some comfort in such distinguished fellowship across the years, though whether comfort is quite the sentiment a duck deserves remains a matter for debate. It might also be noted, purely as a point of interest, that Messrs Tapsfield, Sedgwick and Tomson of years past each retired from the game with precisely three career ducks to their name, exactly as Mr Fryer now stands — kindred spirits in the art of not scoring, separated by decades but united in tally. In Summary One match, one duck, one gentleman keeping rather select company with the ghosts of 1881. Not a vintage week for the connoisseur of failure, but the Club's records are nothing if not patient, and further additions are anticipated in due course. Duck Hunting Season Leaderboard - Jack Fryer — 1 innings, 1 duck, 100.0% The Club extends its compliments to Mr Fryer on his contribution to the season's tally, and looks forward, as ever, to the next fixture furnishing further candidates for these pages. The willow awaits its next victim.