A duck is always a bit of an embarrassment for a cricketer, no matter how successful he is and if you get out on duck multiple times in a season, it’s even tougher to take it into your stride.
Here are the Indian cricketers with the most ducks in a calendar year in ODI cricket –
Sachin Tendulkar (1999)
Sachin Tendulkar scored 4 ducks in 1999 which was a little surprising because he was at the peak of his career at that time and was playing some unbelievable knocks. However, since he was opening the innings, he was always bound to get some good deliveries upfront. As it turned out, he fell quite a few times to those good deliveries without opening his account in 1999.
Zaheer Khan (2003)
Zaheer was a tail-ender and the fact that he scored 4 ducks in 2003 never raised anyone’s eyebrows. There was a time in the early 2000s when Zaheer was actually very useful with the bat, but still, he was only a tail-ender with loose defense and was always going to fall to some world-class death bowling.
Mohammed Kaif (2006)
2006 was not a great year for Mohammed Kaif at all. His performance that year was actually the beginning of the end for him as he was out of the Indian set-up within a year or so after that. Kaif was dismissed for a duck for 4 times in 2006.
Yusuf Pathan (2009)
Yusuf Pathan also struggled with his form in 2009 and scored 4 ducks, but it didn’t really affect his career adversely as he still remained a part of the Indian ODI squad for the next couple of years and was actually a World Cup winner for India in 2011.
Yusuf used to play a high-risk game down the order and often used to walk in at times where he had to go after the bowling from ball one. So the fact that he went through a phase where he scored some ducks was understandable.
Yuvraj Singh (2013)
It was the comeback year for Yuvraj and he played a couple of ODI series that year, but he got out on quite a few low scores which included 4 ducks.
Yuvraj often got troubled by short-pitched deliveries in 2013, which was a little unlike him as he had been a good player of short balls over the years.
Yuvraj lost his place in the Indian squad later that year, but he made a comeback again next year.
