In the recent First Test between South Africa and Australia played in Durban, the Australian Nic Maddinson, recently recalled to the Australian team after many years out of the side (having had to fight cancer and chemotherapy), was not the first opener to be bowled out for a ‘duck’ (a score of nought) but in facing thirty-three balls without being able to score a run, the innings did become the third-longest by any Test opener to go without scoring. Openers are of course meant to be able batters; fortunately for him, the record for the longest innings without a run being scored by one individual incredibly was seventy-seven balls faced by Geoff Allott, a New Zealand bowler, (in 1999).

Muttiah Muralitharan of Sri Lanka holds the unwanted record of being dismissed first ball (the Golden Duck) the most times in Tests, this non-achievement happening to him fourteen times. He though was a bowler and rarely could be described as a batter. In contrast, step forward Sunil Gavaskar, Virender Sehwag and Sanath Jayasuriya, all opening batters who share the unwanted record of being out the most times for a golden duck in Tests, that being five times.

Matthew Henry, the cricket correspondent at the BBC, drew from the dismissal of Maddinson the fact that not every fairytale comes true. He acknowledged that fairy tales do happen in sport, citing the Premier League championship of Leicester City and the US Open tennis title of the British qualifier, Emma Raducanu, but for the most part, fairy tales do not happen in real life, in real sport. Sport can be cruel; the “all lived happily ever after” rarely occurs, it would seem.

Let us consider those fairy tales for a moment. In doing so, we may think of such fairy tales as Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood, Beauty and the Beast, Rapunzel. These are read regularly to children no doubt because they have happy endings and we want our children to be happy. Their stories typically centre around an insurmountable obstacle or trial where virtue, kindness, or cleverness triumphs over evil, closing with a definitive resolution like “happily ever after” or a cautionary punishment for the villain.  However, we need to continually remind our children that in real life and sport, fairy tales do not always happen. They are, after all, purely fiction.

Kirsty Logan has said that “life is not a fairy tale. It’s brighter and darker, longer and briefer, duller and more magical. It’s full of contradictions, but one thing it’s not is neat.” Interestingly, Hans Christian Andersen, the author of many well-known fairy tales, himself said “Life is like a beautiful melody, only the lyrics are messed up.” One of his most popular stories was the ‘Ugly Duckling’. This different looking duck was rejected and bullied until later discovering that it was actually a swan and a life of solitude, hardship, freezing weather eventually turned into something special.

Remember those three batters who share the unwanted record for the most Golden Ducks by an opening batter? Just note this also: Sunil Gavaskar scored thirty-four Test centuries, completing 10,122 runs in Test cricket with his highest Test score of 236 not out. Virendar Sehwag’s highest Test score was 319 runs, while he also achieved twenty-three centuries, and finished with 8,586 Test runs. Sanath Jayasuriya’s highest Test score was 340 runs while he completed fourteen Test centuries and scored 6,973 runs overall. With five Golden Ducks, were they ugly ducklings? Swans more like.

The celebrated exponents of fairy tales, the Grimm Brothers, may not have written any stories about sport but many could be taken as a sporting parable. The reality is that our batter being bowled for a duck, whether it took seventy-seven balls, thirty-three balls or one ball, did not experience the expected joy then but their whole career showed them that it does not rely on one innings. [We might note in the second innings of the Test mentioned above, Maddinson scored 48 off 38 balls.]

However, we will be far crueller than the evil stepmother, the bad witch or the big bad wolf if we do not reinforce in our children that not all stories have fairy tale endings, that not all dreams become reality. We must not duck the issue. We must help our children at a young age grasp firstly that fairy tales do not always happen but secondly that being out for a duck is not the worst or the end or an embarrassment. It happens. The duck(ling) can turn into something beautiful, priceless, special later on. There is nothing grim about that.