Does your surname decide how often you make a duck?

The questions nobody sensible would commission, put to 895 men’s Tests since December 2001 and treated with the gravity they do not deserve.

Top-seven batters in Tests since December 2001 have made a duck in 8.2% of their innings. Split them by the first letter of their surname and the alphabet turns out to be a batting order.

1. M9.7%
2. I9.6%
3. F9.5%
4. E9.5%
5. H9.5%
6. J9.3%
7. B9.2%
8. G8.7%
9. A8.5%
10. L8.4%
11. S8.2%
12. T7.9%
13. V7.9%
14. W7.7%
15. P7.4%
16. K7.3%
17. N7.2%
18. R7.2%
19. D7.0%
20. C6.7%

Surnames starting with M lead the ducks among the common letters at 9.7%, across 1,847 innings by 74 batters. Kusal Mendis has 15 ducks in 137 innings and Brendon McCullum 13 in 147. C sits at the other end at 6.7%, a record Alastair Cook helped with nine ducks in 291 innings.

Taken as halves, the first half of the alphabet makes ducks in 8.5% of its innings, and the second half in 7.7%.

The rarest letters settle the question in a sentence each. Q rests on one man, Robert Quiney, who opened his Test career with 9 at the Gabba in 2012 and then made a pair in Adelaide, a duck rate of 67%. Z has made one duck in 14 innings.