🦆 The Duck Pond

A brace of fixtures graced the closing days of summer, and the zero club welcomed four new entries to its rolls — every one of them, as it happens, procured in the single encounter with the 8th Sherwood Foresters. The Sunday match passed, most unusually, without a single addition. 1st XI — v 8th Sherwood Foresters (home, 8th September) - Stan Wratten, promoted to first wicket down, was smartly taken by Heath off Fisher's bowling — his third career duck in six-and-thirty innings, and the 45th man of 551 to grace the club's long and dubious roll. He now stands level with A Kent, of the 1893 vintage, both gentlemen holding exactly three apiece across the decades. A veteran of the "Quacking Together" honour alongside John Ames, though that particular double stayed politely dormant this week. - Jimmy Jameson came and went two places later, bowled by Fisher for his second duck of the season and fifth of an increasingly distinguished career in noughts — 28 innings played, and already installed as Duck of the Year for 1945, a crown he shows no sign of relinquishing. He joins Allan Peach, of the Edwardian era, on five career ducks apiece, and sits 14th of 551 in the club's gloomy ledger. Two blanks from four innings this season is form of a very particular kind. - J Jerman, at number six, fell to Carr for his maiden career duck — a solitary blemish on four innings otherwise played with a straight bat. He joins the shade of "- Mill", of 1943, on one apiece, and enters the book at 160th of 551. - Peter Weedon, further down the order, likewise succumbed to Carr, his first career duck from just two innings, drawing level with "- Mill" once more. Weedon is already a paid-up member of the Retirement Duck honour from some earlier and more distant chapter of his cricketing days — the club's records, as ever, running back rather further than any single afternoon. The week in summary Four ducks in two matches, the whole crop harvested in one innings, with Carr and Fisher sharing the bowling honours two apiece on what was evidently a sticky proposition for the home order. Sunday, mercifully or otherwise, offered the zero club nothing at all to report. Duck Hunting Season Leaderboard - Jimmy Jameson — 4 innings, 2 ducks (50.0%) - D Clark — 1 innings, 1 duck (100.0%) - D Paine — 1 innings, 1 duck (100.0%) - Peter Weedon — 2 innings, 1 duck (50.0%) - J Jerman — 4 innings, 1 duck (25.0%) The eleven takes the field again before long, and the zero club's books remain, as always, open for business. Should any member fancy his chances of a duck's egg, the opposition's bowlers stand ready to oblige.

A quiet week for the fowl-house, but the eggs did not evade capture entirely — two were laid all the same, both by the 1st XI against MCPC. 1st XI - D Clark, in at four, fell to a smart catch by H Allard off the bowling of B Stevens — not a run to his name. A first appearance at the crease and a first entry in the club's ledger of nought arrived in the very same stroke, a debut duck, the swiftest and most complete kind of welcome the game affords a new man. He takes his place at 117th of 550 in the long roll of the dismissed, joining - Mill, who played his solitary innings back in 1943 and departed with precisely the same lone duck to his name — two men, years apart, entering and leaving the record on identical terms. - Jimmy Jameson, sent in at six, was run out for nought without troubling the scorers — a sticky piece of running rather than a beaten bat, but a duck's egg all the same, his fourth in a career now seven-and-twenty innings deep, and good enough for 26th of 550 on the club's all-time list. Mr Jameson already carries this season's own laurel, having been named Duck of the Year for 1945, an honour he continues to justify with each fresh walk back to the pavilion. In this he keeps distinguished company with Bert Buckoke, who across thirteen seasons at the club also settled on four ducks from twenty-eight innings, and who claimed that very same honour back in 1928. The Week in Brief Two matches played, two ducks laid, both in the one fixture against MCPC — the eleven finding the visitors' bowling rather more than a match for its patience. No pairs this week, no golden ducks, and happily no family affairs either — the egg-basket, for once, kept to individual enterprise. Duck Hunting Season Leaderboard - D Clark — 1 innings, 1 duck, 100% - D Paine — 1 innings, 1 duck, 100% - Jimmy Jameson — 3 innings, 1 duck, 33.33% - Herbert Rayner — 4 innings, 1 duck, 25% The season is young yet, and the wicket has proved no respecter of reputation. Members are warmly bidden to the next fixture, where past form rather suggests both the tail and the top order will find fresh occasion to add to the ledger.

Fifth Leicester came calling on the 26th, and though the home eleven will remember the day for other reasons, the ledger of dubious distinction records that the exclusive zero club took in two new subscriptions before the innings was done. Neither will trouble the golden duck registrar — both gentlemen troubled the scorers for a ball or two before the inevitable arrived — but that is scant comfort to a batsman walking back all the same. 1st XI 🍩 Herbert Rayner, in at six, was taken by Rowley off Gulliver's bowling for nought — a plucky knock in intent if not in outcome. This is the 1st of the season for Rayner, and his 6th career duck in sixty innings, a solid tenth of five hundred and forty-six on the all-time roll of the afflicted. He sits, curiously, on exactly the same career tally as one D Sells, who racked up his own six ducks across 1943 to 1944 and carried off the Duck of the Year honour in 1943 to boot — good company to keep on a bad wicket. 🏏 0️⃣ Then came D Paine, at seven, bowled by L Ricketts without troubling the scorers either. A first innings for the club, and what an opening statement — a maiden duck to mark a maiden appearance, the 1st of the season and, naturally, the 1st of a career yet to properly begin. He joins the ledger at rank 118 of 546, drawing level on tally with a certain "- Mill", whose entire recorded career amounted to one innings and one duck back in 1943 — Paine may yet do rather better than that, one hopes, but for now the two stand shoulder to shoulder in the book of noughts. 🥇 (of a very particular kind) The Week in Brief A single match, a single reversal, and two fresh entries in the roll of honour — the tail, such as it was, wagged not at all on this occasion. No pairs, no king pairs, and no family affairs to report this week; the duck confined itself to solitary calls at the crease. A sticky wicket, evidently, for numbers six and seven — though one imagines the Fifth Leicester bowlers will not remember it half so fondly as this Gazette does. Duck Hunting Season Leaderboard - D Paine — 1 innings, 1 duck, 100.0% - Herbert Rayner — 2 innings, 1 duck, 50.0% The season's chase for the very particular glory of the nought continues apace. Members are warmly reminded that the next fixture waits for no one, and the eleven's batsmen are cordially invited to add — or, with better fortune, decline to add — to these figures. Until then, the pavilion door remains ever open. 🏏🍩

A quiet week, gentlemen, and no cause for the pavilion bell to toll in shame. Saturday's fixture came and went and not a single member of the Eleven troubled the scorers with a duck's egg — the zero club, so often oversubscribed, finds itself this week entirely without new applicants. Whether this be attributed to a wicket playing true, to bats held unusually straight, or merely to the ducks themselves electing to keep to the pond rather than the crease, the Club cannot say. It is, in its way, its own small triumph — for consistency of a very particular kind was, on this occasion, denied us. Duck Hunting Season Leaderboard The board stands empty this week, gentlemen — no fresh figures to report, and the season's honours remain exactly as they were left. A quiet ledger is no bad thing, though one suspects it will not stay quiet for long. The Club looks ahead with its customary and entirely unwarranted optimism to the next fixture, confident that the ducks, having taken this week off, will return in their accustomed numbers before long. Until then — mind the sticky wickets, gentlemen, and keep your bats straight.