Shaun Marsh - Ducks and Tons

It has come to some people’s attention that Shaun Marsh has an unenviable record in Test cricket.

Should Shane Watson re-enter the Australian team for the third Test at Cape Town at his expense, Marsh will have one foot in each of two curious history books. Were he never to play another Test – an eminently possible proposition – he would join such luminaries as Barry Richards*, Clive Radley and Tom Moody to have scored two tons in less fifteen or fewer innings. (*No one doubts Richards would have played many more innings and scored many more hundreds had South Africa been able to play Test cricket in the 1970s and 1980s).

Less appealingly, Marsh also be the star feature in another tome detailing batsmen with the highest percentage of failed innings.

On a good day, Shaun Marsh is splendid to watch. On bad days – of which there are far more – you barely get a look at him. This is because for any Test batsman (i.e. not specialist wicketkeeper or bowler) who has played at least 15 innings, Marsh has the highest rate of ducks per innings. He records one zero every 2.5 times he strolls to the crease (40%), a truly remarkable rate that makes him a true outlier. The only other true batsman with at least 15 innings’ experience to record even one duck in every four innings is the immortal Saleem Elahi, who made six gozzers in twenty-four.

The following is a chart that plots the frequency of a player’s ducks against the frequency of their scores above 50. To qualify, a player must have been selected as a batsman or all-rounder, played a minimum of fifteen Test innings and had a duck frequency rate (DFR) over 10% (i.e. one duck every ten innings).

Notable outliers have been named and highlighted.

A table containing these players can be found at the conclusion of this post. 

The table makes interesting reading, as it features twelve Test captains and two of the popularly-acknowledged best ‘keeper-batsmen in history, Matt Prior (DFR 11.2%) and Adam Gilchrist (10.2%). It is completely unastonishing that Gilchrist has the second-highest rate of scores above 50 (31.4%).

Even more surprising is the presence of Ken “Slasher” Mackay (DFR 13.5%), who despite never scoring a Test hundred was the bedrock of Australian hopes during batting collapses in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Other high-profile figures with significant DFRs include Dennis Amiss, Yuvraj Singh, Phil Hughes and Sir Frank Worrell.

Shaun Marsh’s Test career is still young and must be regarded as very fragile. His best comparison from the chart above - in playing style, Test success and off-field habits - may come from Wayne Larkins, the English cavalier who toured Australia miserably in 1990-91. Larkins didn't manage a Test century, but the pair score First Class hundreds at a very similar rate.

Fifteen innings is not a large sample size – the smallest to have recorded at least six ducks by 9 innings, and Marsh has batted in the fewest innings in this group. With the amount of abject failures he has to his name, he may not get the chance to raise that tally and few would dispute it as unfair.

Player	Country	Inns	Ducks	50s	100s	50+	% duck	% 50	% 100	% 50+
ME Atapattu	SL	141	22	17	16	33	0.156	0.121	0.113	0.234
A Flintoff	England	130	17	26	5	31	0.131	0.200	0.038	0.238
GL Flower	Zimbabwe	123	16	15	6	21	0.130	0.122	0.049	0.171
MW Gatting	England	138	16	21	10	31	0.116	0.152	0.072	0.225
M Ashraful	Bangladesh	119	16	8	6	14	0.134	0.067	0.050	0.118
K Rutherford	New Zealand	99	16	18	3	21	0.162	0.182	0.030	0.212
K Akmal	Pakistan	92	15	12	6	18	0.163	0.130	0.065	0.196
D Randall	England	79	14	12	7	19	0.177	0.152	0.089	0.241
AC Gilchrist	Australia	137	14	26	17	43	0.102	0.190	0.124	0.314
MJ Prior	England	116	13	27	7	34	0.112	0.233	0.060	0.293
FE Woolley	England	98	13	23	5	28	0.133	0.235	0.051	0.286
M Ramprakash	England	92	12	8	2	10	0.130	0.087	0.022	0.109
DM Jones	Australia	89	11	13	6	19	0.124	0.146	0.067	0.213
MJK Smith	England	78	11	10	3	13	0.141	0.128	0.038	0.167
FMM Worrell	West Indies	87	11	17	6	23	0.126	0.195	0.069	0.264
DL Amiss	England	88	10	10	8	18	0.114	0.114	0.091	0.205
I Alam	Pakistan	77	10	8	1	9	0.130	0.104	0.013	0.117
D Ganga	West Indies	86	9	8	3	11	0.105	0.093	0.035	0.128
MJ Greatbatch	New Zealand	71	9	9	1	10	0.127	0.127	0.014	0.141
CZ Harris	New Zealand	42	9	4	0	4	0.214	0.095	0.000	0.095
C Hill	Australia	89	9	18	7	25	0.101	0.202	0.079	0.281
N Sidhu	India	78	9	15	9	24	0.115	0.192	0.115	0.308
KLT Arthurton	West Indies	50	8	7	1	8	0.160	0.140	0.020	0.160
J Darling	Australia	60	8	8	3	11	0.133	0.133	0.050	0.183
HH Dippenaar	South Africa	62	8	5	2	7	0.129	0.081	0.032	0.113
AL Logie	West Indies	78	8	13	2	15	0.103	0.167	0.026	0.192
H Masakadza	Zimbabwe	50	8	4	2	6	0.160	0.080	0.040	0.120
A Ali	Pakistan	60	7	14	5	19	0.117	0.233	0.083	0.317
AC Hudson	South Africa	63	7	12	4	16	0.111	0.190	0.063	0.254
JS Solomon	West Indies	46	7	8	0	8	0.152	0.174	0.000	0.174
Yuvraj Singh	India	62	7	8	3	11	0.113	0.129	0.048	0.177
BF Hastings	New Zealand	56	6	7	4	11	0.107	0.125	0.071	0.196
PJ Hughes	Australia	49	6	5	3	8	0.122	0.102	0.061	0.163
W Jaffer	Pakistan	58	6	11	4	15	0.103	0.190	0.069	0.259
W Larkins	England	25	6	3	0	3	0.240	0.120	0.000	0.120
KD Mackay	Australia	52	6	7	0	7	0.115	0.135	0.000	0.135
SE Marsh	Australia	15	6	1	2	3	0.400	0.067	0.133	0.200
S Elahi	Pakistan	24	6	1	0	1	0.250	0.042	0.000	0.042
S Afridi	Pakistan	48	6	8	5	13	0.125	0.167	0.104	0.271
RT Simpson	England	45	6	6	4	10	0.133	0.133	0.089	0.222
DS Smith	West Indies	58	6	5	1	6	0.103	0.086	0.017	0.103
G Ulyett	England	39	6	7	1	8	0.154	0.179	0.026	0.205