In the very mangled words of Massive Attack's biggest hit, "Teardrop", "duck, duck is a bird; duck is a doing word". And it does a lot of heavy lifting in cricket.
For starters, it's an evasive manoeuvre that's a part of every batter's vocabulary, one that you'll learn quickly if you want to keep all your teeth. And it's not exclusive to batters - close-in fielders also have to be part-time contortionists.
During WWII, cricketers and spectators alike in London had to duck to take cover from bombers flying over the grounds. Thankfully today the most cricketers have to dodge is the occasional swarm of bees.
A duck is also a batter's least favourite number. The origin of the term for a batter being dismissed for nought can supposedly be traced back to a reference in an 1866 newspaper report on the then Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII, departing for a "duck's egg" in a match (presumably taking after l'oeuf in tennis).
In 1977, Kerry Packer decided to add insult to injury for batters with the introduction of Daddles the duck, as a way to engage younger audiences. The animated duck would show up on screen when a batter departed without troubling the scorers, angrily and mournfully dragging his bat across the screen as the player exited stage left. Daddles became a beloved Australian icon but died an untimely death when cricket moved away from Channel Nine. For a long time, it was also hated by cricket purists as a symbol of everything that was wrong with Packer's revolution, a way to introduce frivolity to what was a noble game. But Tom Kerr, the cartoonist who designed Daddles, delighted in it. On his website he says, "I read somewhere that the Pommies (the English) hated it, and that is reward in and of itself."
But Daddles is not the most famous duck in cricket. That honour, or dishonour, goes to Don Bradman's final score in Test cricket, one that he didn't know would be his last innings. He was four runs away from finishing with a career average of 100 when Eric Hollies' googly snuck through the gap and found the off stump.
For a brief period of time, the duck was also a vacuum and turf drying machine, though what one had to do with the other is a mystery.
Before India's semi-final against Australia in the 2015 World Cup in Sydney, a fan club in Bhopal organised an event in which they fed bread to ducks in a local lake, presumably to appease the waterfowl gods and keep them away from the game. They should maybe have plumped for cake, because not only did India lose the match but two tailenders, Umesh Yadav and Mohit Sharma, were out for blobs.
Colin Cowdrey only ever bagged a pair once, but it wasn't on the field. Here he auctions a couple of ducks in the Lord's Long Room as part of a gourmet food fair for the benefit of the Arthritis and Rheumatism Council.
Matthew Hayden believes revenge is a dish best served with a side of seared scallops and watercress. The former Australia batter is a keen cook, with a couple of cookbooks to his name, and in 2009 he was invited to launch a restaurant in Chennai with a cooking demonstration. On the menu: tom yum soup, a trio of scallops and duck breast with sesame, plum and orange rum sauce.
Could there be a reason James Anderson isn't excited about the ducks raining down on this Lancashire team photocall?
A bunch of ducks in the water is a raft. A bunch of ducks on land is a waddling. A bunch of ducks in the stands is flocking psychological warfare.
