Ducking into trouble with zeroes

Virat Kohli of Royal Challengers Bangalore walks back to the pavilion after being dismissed for a first-ball duck for the third time in IPL-15, during the clash against Sunrisers Hyderabad at Wankhede Stadium last Sunday. Pic/BCCI; IPL

When Virat Kohli leaves the dressing room to bat for the Royal Challengers Bangalore against Punjab Kings at the Brabourne Stadium tomorrow, it could well be that his primary aim would be to get off the mark after Sunday's third IPL-15 golden duck.

IPL doesn't fall into the international cricket category (yes, it's a BCCI domestic tournament), but the stakes are high; franchise-pressure never to be underestimated. And ducks can throw the embarrassment factor into the potpourri of emotions. "You lose your mental equilibrium and start worrying about things instead of focussing on what you should be focussing on," Greg Chappell told me in December 2003 when I asked him what happens to a batsman when he is in a rut. Chappell would know, considering his Australian season of 1981-82 saw him walk back to the pavilion with a duck against his name seven times against the likes of Pakistan and West Indies.

"West Indian sports psychologist Rudi Webster, who was down in Melbourne at the time, asked me, ‘Are you watching the ball?' I said, ‘Of course I am watching the ball.' When I thought about it in my hotel room that night, I realised I was actually not watching the ball. The reason I was not doing that was because I was not in the right frame of mind," Chappell told me at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the venue of his first of seven blobs in 1981-82. Whether this is the case with Kohli's mind, one doesn't know.

The inability to score is no laughing matter for the victim, but ducks also give rise to some mirth. Chappell would remember the duck-related cartoons in the Australian newspapers back then. The legendary Garfield Sobers's duck in the second of the two Trinidad Tests against India in 1971 figured in a calypso by Lord Relator: "Bedi hear that he became a father. So he catch out Holford in the covers. But when Sobers hear he too had a son, he make duck and went back in the pavilion."

Cricketers enjoy many memorable days, but there can be bad days too. Mohammed Azharuddin endured two ducks in three days - both against Pakistan in the 1991 Wills Trophy in Sharjah. Interestingly, Azharuddin and Sachin Tendulkar were dismissed for ducks in the final of that tournament which the arch-rivals won by 72 runs, with paceman Aquib Javed bagging a hat-trick. Tendulkar, who went on to become an all-time great in both formats, ironically began his ODI career with ducks in his first two games (v Pakistan and NZ).

The master batsman's biggest sequence of ducks in Test cricket was when he was sent back to the pavilion thrice in four innings across three separate Tests on India's 2001-02 tour of the West Indies - in Trinidad, Barbados and Antigua. Two seasons later, his ducks in the first (Brisbane) and third (Melbourne) Tests against Australia were followed by unbeaten knocks of 241 and 60 in the final Test of the 2003-04 Border-Gavaskar Trophy series in Sydney.

Ducks can afflict in-form batsmen too. Dilip Vengsarkar's marvellous centuries at Lord's and Leeds in 1986 were instrumental in India's one and only 2-0 victory in England. However, he ended the series with a 0 in the second innings of the third and final Test at Edgbaston.

VVS Laxman, like Vengsarkar, a batting stylist, had only 14 ducks in 134 Tests (the most crushing ones could have been the pair against NZ at Wellington in 2002-03), but he kicked off (v Zimbabwe at Cuttack in 1998) and ended his 86-match ODI career in ducks.

Recalled to the one-day mix for the final game of the 2006-07 ODI series in Centurion, I watched Laxman edge the first ball he faced (off Shaun Pollock) to SA skipper Graeme Smith at first slip. That was only Laxman's third game on South African soil. The earlier two were on India's 2001-02 tour following which he was not chosen in Sourav Ganguly's 2003 World Cup squad in the Southern Africa-hosted tournament.

Ganguly too had his share of duck trouble. Twice in the seven-match ODI series in New Zealand during the lead-up to the 2003 World Cup was Ganguly dismissed for a blob. His others scores of 14, 4, 2, 23 and 15 against the Kiwis were far from impressive either. He famously started his Test career with a century at Lord's in 1996 but ended it with a duck against the Australians at Nagpur in 2008.

Ducks have tormented an array of other Indian star cricketers. Gundappa Viswanath's first innings in Test cricket resulted in a no-score (followed by a century). India's greatest opening batsman and international cricket's first 10,000-run man, Sunil Gavaskar was dismissed for zero off the first ball of a Test on three occasions. Mohinder Amarnath was sent back without scoring five times in six Test innings by the West Indian quicks in the 1983-84 series. And while Kohli hopes he doesn't ‘duck' into more trouble, the opposition bowlers know well that they could be ducking for cover once he gets off the mark.

Ducks may cause utter disappointment and sheer dejection, but they don't define players, especially enduring champions like Kohli.

mid-day's group sports editor Clayton Murzello is a purist with an open stance.
He tweets @ClaytonMurzello. Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com
The views expressed in this column are the individual's and don't represent those of the paper.