IPL: Rohit Sharma, Ajinkya Rahane, Ajit Agarkar and the "Bombay Duck" connection

Rohit Sharma and Ajinkya Rahane are two Mumbai cricketers who are national vice-captains in India’s white-ball and red-ball cricket respectively. Two players with massive reputations, the duo hold an unwanted record against their name, significant enough to share the burden of Ajit Agarkar, with the “Bombay Duck” nickname. We will come to that.

In late 1990s, Mumbai’s Ajit Agarkar came into the national team as a bowling all-rounder. In his first year of international cricket, he broke Dennis Lillee’s record and became the then fastest bowler to 50 ODI wickets. When the Sachin Tendulkar-led India traveled to Australia in 1999-00, the nation pinned its hopes on the wiry young all-rounder.

India suffered a 3-0 whitewash. Ajit Agarkar was India’s most impressive bowler with 11 wickets at an average of 31.9. But it was his batting that made more headlines for a difficult feat that he achieved. He managed five ducks in his six innings, including two pairs (one king pair).

A year later, when Australia toured India, he registered another pair in the Mumbai Test, making it seven ducks in a row against Australia. It earned him the nickname “Bombay Duck”.

Apart from being India’s third-highest wicket-taker in ODIs, Ajit Agarkar holds the batting record for the fastest fifty by an Indian in the format. He’s also the seventh Indian batter to score a century at Lord’s, something that Sachin Tendulkar didn’t achieve and Rahul Dravid managed towards the end of his career. Despite these feats, the “Bombay Duck” moniker didn’t elude him.

Random trivia: Bombay Duck, popularly called Bombil, is a species of lizardfish. The fish is mainly found in the tropical areas of the Indo-Pacific.

What’s the Ajinkya Rahane and Rohit Sharma “Bombay Duck” connection?

Both Ajinkya Rahane and Rohit Sharma have played cricket for Mumbai with Ajit Agarkar. Both stalwarts top the list for most ducks in the Indian Premier League (IPL).

Rohit Sharma started his career with the now-defunct Deccan Chargers (DC) before becoming the captain of Mumbai Indians (MI). Meanwhile, Ajinkya Rahane started his IPL journey with MI before moving to Rajasthan Royals (RR), Rising Pune Supergiant (RPS) and now Delhi Capitals (DC).

Most ducks in IPL

• - Harbhajan Singh (MI, CSK, KKR): I 90 | Ave 15.7 | SR 137.9 | 0s 13
• - Parthiv Patel (CSK, DC, KTK, MI, RCB, SRH): I 137 | Ave 22.6 | SR 120.8 | 0s 13
• - Ajinkya Rahane (MI, RR, RPS, DC): I 141 | Ave 31.5 | SR 121.3 | 0s 13
• - Ambati Rayudu (CSK, MI): I 159 | Ave 29.5 | SR 127.7 | 0s 13
• - Rohit Sharma (DC, MI): I 205 | Ave 31.4 | SR 130.4 | 0s 13

Interestingly, all five men on the list have played for MI. Harbhajan Singh has registered all his 13 ducks for MI, Rohit Sharma 11 and Ambati Rayudu nine. Parthiv Patel has five ducks for MI and two against them.

Piyush Chawla, Gautam Gambhir, Mandeep Singh and Manish Pandey are next on the most-ducks-in-the-IPL list with 12 scores of zero.

In all the T20s, Chris Gayle tops the list with 30 ducks in his career. But don't forget that in a T20 career spanning over 16 years, the southpaw has 440 innings. However, the Jamaican has no Mumbai connection to them.

On a lighter note, Rohit Sharma and Ajinkya Rahana have also together appeared in an episode for What the Duck!