During the concluding T20I against South Africa in Cairns, Josh Inglis, Australia’s wicketkeeper-batter, achieved the dubious distinction of become the second player in the T20I format to record two golden ducks in an Australian series.
Facing South African seamer Corbin Bosch, Inglis departed for naught on his first delivery, replicating the first-match record of his opening ball in the series. He was omitted from the squad for the intervening fixture.
This latest failure elevates Inglis to the second-ranking for zero scores in T20 internationals in Australia, with only ex-captain Aaron Finch possessing a higher figure, having accumulated four ducks in his domestic T20I career. Inglis debuted his Cairns T20I career with a first-ball duck against Pakistan in 2022.
Analysis of the T20I record compiled by ESPNcricinfo indicates Inglis has now acquired a quartet of ducks as an Australian player, of which three have been first ball exits.
The aggregate is typified by Finch’s superior total of eight, while the next three Australian internationals with excessive first-ball exits—David Warner (six) and Glenn Maxwell (five)—have yet to surpass the contemporary sequence of Inglis. Since the wicketkeeper’s inaugural fixture in February 2022, the cohort of Australian internationals with identical duck tallies is reclined to Maxwell and Tim David.
Despite recent tribulations, Inglis’s T20 international résumé retains commendable composure. In 36 appearances he has 878 runs at an average marginally exceeding 30, underpinned by a strike rate of 164.41. Half-centuries dot the sheet 54 times, while the transition to three figures has been completed on two occasions. His stable cadence of innings sides with explosive potential.
Regionally, Inglis has forged a reliable identity with the Perth Scorchers in the BBL. Adding international and sectional fixtures, he totals 157 T20 fixtures, with 3,820 runs, four centuries and 20 fifties embellishing the scorecard. Of this cohort, seven innings have recorded a duck, three of which were in the BBL, an anomaly that contradicts pressing appearances of confident acceleration.
Though increasingly labelled an attacking centerpiece, the recent minimal scores in the heart of explosive innings testify to the volatility of the format. Statistics, while mercilessly cold, often document what the batter ludically forgets, amplifying fleeting failures until memory sublimates them into attritional inevitabilities.
