Improving to Ground ZERO: Maximum Ducks in Indian Premier League

Scoring a century, winning matches for your side and getting out for a duck are the three toughest things in the game of cricket. Its not irritating when a bowler gets out for a duck but think about the lead batsman of the team, who gets out without contributing anything to the total. Today our article will be finally improving to Ground ZERO; focusing on the bitter record, i.e., maximum ducks in Indian Premier League. For this record we have allotted a minimum of 1000 runs across all editions of Indian Premier League to qualify for this category.

5. 6 ducks (Suresh Raina, Subramanium Badrinath, Tillakratne Dilshan, Virender Sehwag, Dinesh Karthik, Yusuf Pathan)

There are 6 batsmen, who are tied at the 5 spot in the list of players with maximum ducks in Indian Premier League. All of them are regular impact players for their side.  They are Tillakratne Dilshan (1153 runs), Subramanium Badrinath (1441 runs), Virender Sehwag (2225 runs), Dinesh Karthik (1833 runs), Yusuf Pathan (1835 runs) and Suresh Raina (2887 runs). All these players are featuring in IPL from the first edition itself and are match-winners for their side but on a few occasions, they failed to live upto their reputation and failed to add anything to their team’s total.

4. 7 ducks (Parthiv Patel, Manoj Tiwary, Adam Gilchrist)

There are 3 batsmen, who are tied in this spot, i.e., 4th in the list of most ducks in IPL. They are Manoj Tiwary (1147 runs), Parthiv Patel (1321 runs) and the now retired Adam Gilchrist (2047 runs). Adam Gilchrist is one of the IPL winning captains while Parthiv was the wicket-keeper batsman of Sunrisers Hyderabad last season. Manoj Tiwary on the other hand, was instrumental in the IPL win of Kolkata Knight Riders in 2012.

3. 8 ducks (Manish Pandey)

There is only one batsman who is occupying the third spot in the list of most ducks in Indian Premier League is Manish Pandey (1062 runs). In 2009, Manish Pandey became the first Indian to score a century in Indian Premier League but failed to live up to the reputation thereafter, failing considerably after getting good starts. His rise in the form has been mercurial and the problem remains yet to be sorted out for him.

2. 9 ducks (Jacques Kallis)

Second on the list with 9 ducks is the best ever all-rounder of the modern era, Jacques Kallis (2391 runs). While he has scored considerable amount of runs at a slow but steady pace, Kallis has failed on 9 occasions, getting out without adding to the team’s total. The only thing that keeps him in the playing XI is his ability to bowl economical overs and picking up wickets.

1. 10 ducks (Gautam Gambhir)

Topping the list is the skipper of Kolkata Knight Riders, Gautam Gambhir (2471 runs). Before the start of the 7th edition of the IPL, Gautam Gambhir had 7 ducks to his name. But with a hattrick of ducks in the first 3 games in this edition, Gambhir has overtaken all to become the player with most number of ducks to his name. It has also given a huge blow of making his comeback to the Indian side. We expect Gambhir to return to his form soon and lead his team with example by scoring runs with the bat.(also read If IPL had Pakistanis)

*Stats updated till 25th April 2014