Batsmen scoring a duck on their birthday in international cricket — Tests, ODIs, and T20Is

Akshar Patel, “celebrated” his 21st birthday on January 20, 2015 with a golden duck in the One-Day International (ODI) between India England at Brisbane. Bharath Seervi lists the occasions when players got out for duck on their birthday in International matches.

Birthdays come once a year. When that day falls on match day, fans probably expect something more. A batsman is expected to score big while bowlers are expected to take wickets. Unfortunately, not many players manage to achieve the same, facing a fate similar to what Akshar Patel did on his 21st birthday.

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Akshar has not got a good start to his Australian tour with the bat (which is unfortunate, given that the ICC World Cup 2015 is merely two weeks away). He was out for a second-ball duck against Australia at Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) on January 18 and two days later got a golden duck against England at The Gabba, the second innings coming on his birthday

How many players have got a duck on their birthday in ODIs? Akshar was the 18th to achieve this “feat”. The last was Hamilton Masakadza, on his 26th birthday in 2009. The others are listed in the table below.

Duck on birthday in ODIs

Akshar is the fourth player after Pat Symcox, Junior Murray and Azhar Mahmood to score a golden duck in ODIs on his respective birthday. Asif Mujtaba and Ian Bell played 10 balls for their birthday ducks.

Let us have the same list for Tests.

Duck on birthday in Tests

In Tests 24 players earn this “distinction”, six of which were golden ducks (where number of balls are known). Dicky Richards played 14 balls on his 27th birthday in 1889 for a duck. The most recent to get to this list was Jacques Kallis on his 38th.

Duck on birthday in T20Is

Only one player has achieved this in T20 Internationals (T20I): Tamim Iqbal, on his 25th birthday, on March 20, 2014 against Hong Kong at Chittagong. It was a second ball duck for him.

(Bharath Seervi is a cricket statistician who is obsessed with digging numbers, facts and records related to the game. An active member of Society of Cricket Statisticians of India, he blogs at www.cricketseervistats.blogspot.com. He can be followed on Twitter at www.twitter.com/SeerviBharath and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/SeerviCricket)