Duckless de Villiers, and a first for Clarke

Michael Clarke remained rooted to the crease after edging to first slip against India in Sydney, an action for which he was severely criticised. He defended himself by saying he was in shock after getting his "first first-baller in Test cricket". It was indeed Clarke's first duck, after going 46 innings and 1822 runs without one. His team-mate Michael Hussey hasn't made one yet, and during the course of his hundred at the SCG became the second current batsmen to aggregate 2000 Test runs without a duck.

South Africa's AB de Villiers holds the record for the most innings - 63 - without a duck; he has come close, though, getting dismissed for 1 on three occasions. His 2201 runs at an average of 37.30 is also the highest aggregate for a batsman who hasn't yet scored a Test duck; Hussey is following closely behind, needing 81 runs to draw level. Hussey, though, is nowhere close to de Villiers' innings record; a much better average means he has played only 33 innings for his 2120 runs. The real records, though, belong to Aravinda de Silva who went 75 innings and scored 2779 runs before being dismissed for his first zero.

de Silva's first duck came against Zimbabwe, when he was caught by Wayne James off Heath Streak in Bulawayo in 1994. After that he was dismissed for a duck five times in his next 26 innings against New Zealand, Pakistan and West Indies. Thereafter he made only one duck in his last 53 innings to finish with a total of seven in 159 innings.

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James Anderson, the England fast bowler, has batted 30 innings without a duck, the highest for a specialist bowler. He has remained not out 17 times, out of which he did not get off the mark on seven occasions.

The record for the most ducks in Tests belongs to Courtney Walsh, whose 43 zeroes are followed by Glenn McGrath's 35. Among current players, Muttiah Muralitharan leads the way with 30, with Danish Kaneria, who has 23 ducks, in second place.

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Clive Lloyd, Wally Hammond, Jack Hobbs, Mushtaq Mohammad, Kumar Sangakkara and Doug Walters have all been dismissed without scoring only four times in their careers, which is the least for a cut-off of 100 innings. Lloyd's 175 innings, however, is the most among those batsmen, giving him a rate of 2.28 ducks per 100 innings.

The batsman with the highest duck percentage is Alan Hurst, who was dismissed for zero in 10 out of his 20 innings. Among the current crop of players, New Zealand's Chris Martin is racing up the rankings, with 20 ducks out of the 26 innings in which he has been dismissed. To add to the 20 ducks, he stayed not out on zero 11 times, making it 31 times he has ended the innings on zero, out of 50 innings.

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Shane Warne, who has 34 ducks to his name, and McGrath have enhanced the legend of the ducks with the ball too. They are Nos 2 and 1 respectively on the list of bowlers who have dismissed batsmen for a duck the most number of times. McGrath has 104 victims with no score to their name, Warne 102; but Muttiah Muralitharan is poised to overtake them with 97 such victims.

Ghulam Ahmed, the Indian offspinner, holds the record for having bowled the most balls - 5650 - without dismissing a batsman for a duck. He's followed closely by Viv Richards who bowled 5170 without a duck. Ahmed and Richards also are also first and second on the list of bowlers with the most Test wickets - 68 and 32 respectively - without dismissing a batsman for a duck.

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