🦆 The Duck Pond

A single fixture at Maidstone brought the eleven three additions to the club's roll of the dismissed, the exclusive zero club welcoming two new subscribers to go with one old and familiar face. The 1st Eleven J Lampard, at number five, was bowled by H Waghorn after giving the bowling due consideration, only for the timbers to be disturbed all the same. It is his season's first cipher and his first in a senior career now numbering four innings, placing him sixty-sixth of two hundred and twenty-five in the club's honours roll of the dismissed — respectable company, if not company one seeks out. Curiously, on this very day in 1891, L M Richards performed the identical office against the Royal Engineers, proving that the tenth of August has long held a certain fondness for our batting order. D A Kenward, promoted to number six, met a fate the scorer himself could not quite settle — run out, the particulars unresolved — on the occasion of his very first innings for the club. A debut duck is a bold beginning, and Mr Kenward may console himself that he has, at a stroke, secured his place forty-fourth of two hundred and twenty-five on the all-time list without troubling the bowlers in the slightest. He, too, finds himself in step with Mr Richards's exploit of 1891. F Smith, following at number seven, likewise fell to H Waghorn — the same bowler claiming his second victim of the innings — on his own first appearance for the club. Two debutants, two ciphers, one bowler enjoying rather more success than either newcomer would have wished. Mr Smith rests fifty-third of two hundred and twenty-five, and shares, as did his colleagues, the distinction of the tenth of August's historical partiality to nought. The week in summary One match, three ducks, the whole of the misfortune falling upon the 1st Eleven at Maidstone. Of note, two of the three dismissed were making their maiden appearance in club colours, and H Waghorn's bowling accounted for fully two of the three — a fine afternoon's work for Maidstone, and rather a chastening one for the eleven. Duck Hunting Season Leaderboard - Ernest Cruttenden — 3 innings, 2 ducks, 66.67 per cent - D A Kenward — 1 innings, 1 duck, 100 per cent - F Smith — 1 innings, 1 duck, 100 per cent - H G Smith — 2 innings, 1 duck, 50 per cent - J Edmonds — 2 innings, 1 duck, 50 per cent The club awaits its next fixture with the usual mixture of hope and resignation, confident that the willow will again prove uncooperative for at least one of our number, and that fresh names will shortly present themselves for consideration upon this ever-lengthening roll.

Rochester CC paid our eleven a visit on the 5th, and departed having claimed but two additions to the club's dubious roll of honour. A modest week's harvest, but the honours board is not filled by modesty alone. 1st XI - Ernest Cruttenden (No. 7) was sent back to the pavilion by H M Bathurst, without so much as a run to his name, for the second time this season — his fourth career cipher in nineteen innings, placing him 7th of 220 in the club's melancholy all-time table. He holds the honour of Duck of the Year for 1895, a distinction he is doing his level best to justify. In the matter of career ciphers he now stands level with the estimable C Amies, whose own four noughts were compiled between 1867 and 1870 — a fine piece of company to keep across a gulf of some five-and-twenty years. - Following him to the wicket, and following him back again in short order, was J Edmonds (No. 10), likewise accounting for Bathurst's figures with a duck's egg of his own. It is his maiden season cipher and his first career duck in a brief innings of two, which lands him at 62nd of 220 on the all-time list — a start, one might say, rather than a finish. He now sits level on career ducks with a positively venerable company, headed by A Barker, whose solitary duck of 1885 earned him that season's own Duck of the Year. Mr Bathurst, it should be recorded, accounted for both dismissals — a bowler evidently possessed of a keen eye for the timbers, and one our batting order would do well to treat with greater caution hereafter. The Week in Summary A single fixture, a single wicket-taker among the visitors doing double duty, and two ciphers to show for it — a quiet week by the club's usual generous standards, but every entry on the honours board began somewhere, and both these gentlemen have made their mark upon 1895 regardless. Duck Hunting Season Leaderboard 1. Ernest Cruttenden — 2 innings, 2 ducks, 100.0% 2. H G Smith — 1 innings, 1 duck, 100.0% 3. J Edmonds — 2 innings, 1 duck, 50.0% The season's early running shows a most determined pursuit of the cipher at the top of the table. Members are respectfully reminded that the willow shows no favouritism, and the next fixture promises fresh candidates for the honours board, as it invariably does.

🦆 A modest fixture against Headcorn CC yields but a brace of ducks for the eleven — the timbers were troubled, if not the scorebook. 1st XI v Headcorn CC (home) - Ernest Cruttenden, going in first wicket down, was undone by G Knight and returned to the pavilion with nought to his name. This stands as his first duck's egg of the season, and the third of a career now numbering eighteen innings — a career total that places him fourteenth of the club's two hundred and twenty honorary members, and no stranger to distinction, being the current holder of the Duck of the Year 1895 honour. He joins, on this identical tally of three, such esteemed company as A Kent, A Tapsfield, G Sedgwick, J Mallard and T Tomson, a fraternity of the thrice-dismissed-for-nothing. And by a pleasing coincidence of the calendar, it was on this very day in 1860 that one J Tompson likewise walked back without troubling the scorer, against Loose CC. - H G Smith, sent in at number nine, fell to the bowling of F Paine, also for a cipher. This being his maiden appearance for the eleven, the duck is his very first — an arrival, one might say, announced rather than celebrated, and it places him fifty-seventh of the two hundred and twenty. He has thereby joined, at a stroke, a lengthy roll of members sitting on exactly one career duck, prominent among them A Barker, Arthur Cornwallis and Captain Bowles. As with his colleague Mr Cruttenden, the calendar offers its own echo, for on this same date in 1860 J Tompson likewise made nought against Loose CC. The Week in Summary A single match, a single fixture, and two gentlemen despatched without score — a modest yield by the club's usual standards of ignominy, but modest yields have their own charm. Neither gentleman troubled the bowler for more than the compulsory ball or two, and neither achieved the rare distinction of the king pair, for which the club may be quietly grateful, or quietly disappointed, according to taste. Duck Hunting Season Leaderboard The season is yet young, and stands thus: - Ernest Cruttenden — 1 innings, 1 duck, 100.0% - H G Smith — 1 innings, 1 duck, 100.0% A perfect record, in the club's own peculiar reckoning, for both gentlemen thus far. The eleven's next fixture awaits, and with it, no doubt, fresh candidates for the honours board — the exclusive zero club welcomes all comers, however reluctantly.