On this day – Gower, Lamb, Jackman bag ducks after eating a duck
Cricketers follow a wide range of superstitions while stepping into the field starting from the style of tying shoelaces to the guard taken before facing the first delivery. Some beliefs were as silly as not to eat duck on the night before batting. Few considered the player would fall for a duck while batting if he had eaten a duck around the time of his turn with the bat. It is unsure from where this superstition came out but an England trio of the 1980s had a pretty good experience with it.
Pakistan toured England in the summer of 1982 having not won a Test on English soil in nearly 28 years. The 1982 tour also began quite poorly for the visitors who lost the ODI series by 0-2 margin and were 0-1 down in the 3-match Test series after a 113-run defeat in Birmingham. But Pakistan made a solid comeback at the Lord’s with their opener Mohsin Khan scoring a double ton that helped them reach 428/8 before declaring the innings.
Ducks on the pitch and off the pitch as well!
By the end of the 3rd day’s play, England were reduced to 226/9 as none of the five batsmen in the top-order managed to convert the starts. Pakistan conceded 46 extra runs by then which was the highest contribution to England’s total. Mike Gatting (31) and Robin Jackman (0*) were the unbeaten batsmen at the stumps. After the day’s play, Jackman along with Allan Lamb and skipper David Gower decided to visit a restaurant in the St John’s Wood.
All the three England players ended up ordering a duck for dinner, ignoring the hoodoo of avoiding consuming duck before batting. The result of it was quite instant as Robin Jackman was dismissed for a duck while England could add only one run to their overnight total. Pakistan enforced the follow-on after taking a 201-run lead. England, in the second innings added nine runs in the first nine overs while Pakistan rotated five different bowlers.
Opener Mudassar Nazar bowled the 10th over of the innings (his 2nd over) and struck on the first ball to clean up Derek Randall for nine runs. Couple of overs later, Mudassar had Lamb trapped in front for a duck. On the last ball of the over, Gower edged one behind before adding a run to his tally. This meant England lost four wickets for ten runs across both their innings on 4th day morning. Three of the four players bagged ducks and interestingly, all those three had duck for dinner on the previous night.
England went to stumps at 95/3 on the fourth day where rain interrupted for a brief period of time. They eventually ended up with 276 with the No.11 Jackman scoring 17 runs as he probably didn’t eat duck for dinner. Pakistan got a target of 76 in 18 overs but they chased it down in only 13.1 overs without losing a wicket. Pakistan’s first Test win on England soil in nearly three decades was followed by the home team’s 3-wicket win with which they clinched the Test series.
