- Ask Steven
Disappearing for a duck
Who has collected the most ducks in a Test series? asks Richard Dennis from England.
Leading the way here is Alan Hurst, the former Australian fast bowler who was later an ICC referee.
Hurst bagged six ducks in the 1978-79 Ashes series Down Under, helped (if that's the right word) by the fact it was a six-Test series. Hurst's horror series with the bat included two pairs - and he bagged another one in his next Test, against Pakistan in Melbourne a month later.
Nine others have collected five ducks in a series, most of them bowlers: but Mohinder Amarnath, very much a batsman, managed only one run in six innings, to go with five noughts, in the West Indies in 1983-84.
Another Indian, the bespectacled opener Pankaj Roy, had five zeroes in four Tests in England in 1952.
Two players bagged four ducks in the 1994-95 Ashes series: Glenn McGrath of Australia (in five Tests) and England's Alan Mullally (in four).
The others to have made five ducks in a series are Pramodya Wickremasinghe (three Tests for Sri Lanka v Pakistan in 1999-2000), Ajit Agarkar (three Tests for India v Australia in 1999-2000), Wayne Clark (four Tests for Australia v West Indies in 1977-78) and, in five Tests, Neil Adcock (South Africa v Australia in 1957-58) and Dick Motz (New Zealand v South Africa in 1961-62).
