🦆 The Duck Pond

A quiet week for the exclusive zero club, but not, we are pleased to report, an entirely idle one. One name only troubled the ledger, and troubled it he did. 1st XI - C Stevens, going in at number six against the Royal West Kent Regiment CC on the 7th, was bowled by Captain Bush and returned with nothing to show for his visit to the crease — though we are informed he did trouble the bowling for at least a delivery or two before the timbers were disturbed, so no golden duck to record, merely the ordinary sort. This being his maiden innings for the eleven, it is his first, his only, and consequently his season-defining duck to date, and stands as his maiden entry in the honours book — 77th of 395 in the club's all-time roll of dishonour. He may console himself that the season's silverware for scorelessness already bears his name, Duck of the Year 1909 being his for the taking so far. And by a pleasant coincidence of the calendar, on this very day in 1899 one P T Oyler likewise strolled back for a duck's egg, against Rochester CC — a full decade separating the two gentlemen, united only in the art of not scoring. Week in summary Two fixtures played, and but a single wicket fell to the great leveller of nought. The eleven, on the whole, kept remarkably good order at the crease this week — whether through improved application or simple good fortune, the correspondent declines to speculate. Mr Stevens carries the week's honours alone, and carries them well. Duck Hunting Season Leaderboard 1. C Stevens — 1 innings, 1 duck, 100.0% 2. Charles Wycherley — 1 innings, 1 duck, 100.0% Both gentlemen sit level atop the season's table of dubious distinction, each having faced but a single innings and made rather less of it than they might have hoped. Members are respectfully reminded that the season is yet young, and the ledger has ample room for further entries. We look forward to the next fixture's inevitable contributions to this proud and peculiar record.

A quiet week for the exclusive zero club: but one gentleman was required to make the short walk back, and he did so with a certain dogged consistency that our readers will find not unfamiliar. 1st XI - Charles Wycherley, sent in at number five in the away fixture against Barming Asylum CC, was bowled by Dr Lewis and returned to the pavilion for a cipher. This is his first duck of the present season, and the fourth of a career now running to ten innings — a record that places him eleventh among the three hundred and ninety gentlemen who have, over the club's long history, achieved this particular species of distinction. He finds himself in close and honourable company with C Amies, who between 1867 and 1870 also compiled precisely four such innings, proving that the art of not scoring has never wanted for practitioners. It may further be recorded, for the historically minded, that Mr Wycherley was Duck of the Year as long ago as 1906, a laurel earned in a season quite separate from this one, and no less becoming for its age. In summary, one match was played and one duck secured — a modest yield, though the club's chroniclers would observe that a single well-turned nought, bowled clean by the good doctor himself, wants for nothing in quality what it lacks in quantity. The ducks, in the main, evaded the net this week, and our correspondent is not ashamed to say he was glad of the one that did not. Duck Hunting Season leaderboard - Charles Wycherley — 1 innings, 1 duck, 100% The season is yet young, and the eleven take the field again before long, at which time the club has every confidence that further candidates for this dubious honour will present themselves. Members are cordially invited to attend, willow in hand, and try their luck against the timbers.