🦆 The Duck Pond

A Quiet Week in the Exclusive Zero Club Well now. The scorers may set down their pencils and the eleven may take a well-earned rest, for on this occasion the duck evaded every trap laid for it. Not a single member of the eleven troubled the honours board this week — a straight bat was played throughout, or else fortune simply looked the other way. The Club regrets to report that there is, this week, nothing whatsoever to report. One match was played in the period, and not a solitary nought was recorded from it. Whether this speaks well of the eleven's application at the crease, or merely of a wicket too placid to trouble anybody, the Committee declines to speculate. The art of not scoring, it seems, took the week off. Duck Hunting Season Leaderboard Though the week itself yielded no fresh candidates, the season's roll of dubious honour stands as follows: - 🥇 Derek Pantony — 1 innings, 1 duck, a sobering 100.0% - 🏏 G Vince — 2 innings, 1 duck, 50.0% Derek Pantony's solitary innings this season reads as a masterclass in brevity, while G Vince continues to flirt with the zero club at an even-money rate — the Committee watches both gentlemen with interest, and no small measure of sympathy. So there it is, members — a rare week of peace for the Duck Club's chroniclers, and doubtless all the more galling for it, since a quiet week merely postpones rather than cancels the inevitable. The eleven return to the field next fixture, and history suggests the zero club will not want for new members for very much longer. Until then, keep your bats straight and your eye on the ball — the ducks, we assure you, are merely biding their time.

A Chronicle of the Nought — 15th June 1947 Fair skies over the ground on Sunday last, and the Eleven at home to Expense Accounts — a fixture that, on this evidence, gave rather more to the visitors' bowlers than to our own batting card. Two names go to the book this week, and the book, as ever, welcomes them with open arms. 1st XI - G Vince, in at eight, fell b Unsure — a bowler whose Christian name the scorer evidently despaired of, though his work needed no introduction. It is Vince's first duck's egg of the summer and the fourth entry of a modest career, taking him to 144th of 565 in the club's long and dishonourable roll. Curiously, on this very day in 1887, one Jack Fryer — second on that same roll with a dozen ducks to his name, and twice crowned Duck of the Year — also trudged back for nought, against 1st Innings East Peckham CC. Sixty years apart, the same calendar page, the same walk to the pavilion. - Derek Pantony, last man in at eleven, marked his very first appearance in a Club shirt with the most economical innings the game allows — out without troubling the scorer, on debut. A cruel welcome, but a distinguished one: this nought stakes an early and emphatic claim on the Duck of the Year 1947 honour, the season being but young and Pantony already first past the post. Like Vince, he finds himself keeping curious company with Jack Fryer of 1887 — proof, if any were needed, that the art of not scoring is no respecter of decades. The Week in Brief One match, one defeat of the scoreboard's ambitions, two ducks laid — both, fittingly, at the tail of the innings, numbers eight and eleven proving there is honour yet in going quietly. A modest sample this week, but every roll of honour begins somewhere, and young Pantony has begun his in memorable style. Duck Hunting Season Leaderboard - Derek Pantony — 1 innings, 1 duck, 100% - G Vince — 1 innings, 1 duck, 100% Level at the top of the table, then, though it must be said the bar for entry is not a high one. The season stands open, the wickets stand ready, and the Club looks forward with its customary mixture of dread and delight to whichever gentlemen the next fixture sees fit to induct. Until then, the eleven play on — straight bats where possible, sticky wickets where not.

A single fixture took the field this week, and — remarkable as it may seem to the connoisseur of the duck's egg — not one batsman among either eleven contrived to be dismissed for nought. The bowlers, for all their guile, went home with their appeals unanswered on this particular front, and the exclusive zero club must report, with no small disappointment, that its books remain unopened for the period. It is not for want of trying, one assumes. Every innings carries its share of jittery starts and playing-and-missing, yet on this occasion the tail wagged, the middle order held firm, and even the customary nervous newcomer seems to have got off the mark. A sticky wicket, evidently, was navigated by all with rather more application than the club prefers. We shall not pretend to be anything but a little put out. The pursuit of the duck's egg is, after all, the purest sport this club knows, and a blank week denies us both ceremony and comedy alike. Still, patience is a virtue long practised on the boundary's edge, and the season is young yet. Duck Hunting Season Leaderboard The season's roll of dishonour has, as yet, no entries to publish. The honours board stands polished and waiting, its columns empty of both name and number — a state of affairs the committee trusts will not long persist. Members are reminded that the game continues, and with it the ever-present hazard of the first ball, the leaving stroke gone astray, and the confident forward defensive that meets rather more swing than bargained for. The next fixture will surely furnish the club with fresh material, and your correspondent awaits it with quiet and entirely unsporting optimism.