Kerry Packer was a business tycoon and a visionary for world cricket. In the late 1970s, he introduced several changes to cricket which completely changed the cricket viewing landscape. Be it for the spectators in the crowd or the broadcast audience, there was something new which people then witnessed. Colored clothing, colored broadcast, different camera angles, slow motion replays, were some of the many upgrades that Packer brought in. These were a part of Packer’s World Series Cricket. One such standout feature was the dynamic graphical illustration of Daddles.
The Prince of Wales was once dismissed on a score of zero. The year was 1986. England’s Daily Times then reported that the prince was dismissed on a ‘duck’s egg’ which translates to the score of zero against the batter’s name. Since then, the term duck has always been associated with the score of zero. A cartoonist called Tom Kerr drew the first ever duck for the context of cricket. This duck was called Daddles.
GTV9 was the first production house to feature an animated version of Daddles on the television screen. The duck would make an appearance on the screen whenever the batter would be dismissed for zero. As the batter would walk back to the pavilion, the scorecard depicting that he scored zero runs would be displayed, and within seconds, a dejected duck would make a walk from one side of the screen to the other. Most of the times the duck would be seen crying, and making the walk wearing leg pads, gloves, helmet, and a bat in its hand. A few instances have also seen Daddles break the bat in frustration.
While it was a source of anticipated entertainment for the broadcast audience, not everyone was in agreement with the idea of Daddles. Many cricket pundits believed it was an insult to the batter. If Daddles was projected as one with a voice, then the voice was most often that of Donald Duck. But this voice was silenced in 1999, as Daddles made its last appearance on the television screen that year.
Many animated cartoons tried to fill in the void left by Daddles, but none were met with the success that the duck had endured. In today’s era, Daddles remains only as a nostalgic element in Cricket’s broadcasting world.
