Thursday, December 07, 2006

Appy Fizz - Champions of the World quiz by ESPN Star Sports

Preliminary Round - Mumbai
Date: 7th Dec. 2006
Venue: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Mumbai.

Results:
1st - Symbiosis Law (Suvajit Chakravarti + 1(pls to put hand up))
2nd: Aniket Khasgiwale and Abhishek Nagaraj (in supporting role)
3rd: NMIMS, Mumbai.

The thing that peeved/flabbergasted me most about this quiz was the fact that ESPN Star (and the whole wonderful troupe that comes along) had decided to conduct a nation-wide college only (under-25) quiz on the extremely narrow theme of 'World Cup Cricket'. Now, the rights for the WC, as everyone knows, are not with ESPN-Star and the timing of this event could be only to co-incide with West Indies 07.

Anyway, after the journey to Mumbai, we turned up at the venue to find a surprisingly low number of teams who had turned up (about 25). Considering that we had come to know about it only the day before, it appears that the standard publicity machinery had not been exploited to its full extent by the organizers (perhaps deliberately?) other than Harsha Bhogle doing a Mahaan-of-sorts in the TV advt.

The round itself was a 30Q written-only style, with ESPN School Quiz type factual World Cup questions. Vinod Kambli was present to lend the now-mandatory celebrity quotient (and duly forgot who was the highest wicket-taker at the 96 WC, one in which he was an integral part if the team.)Suvajit and co. cracked it getting all 30 right, while we and the team from NMIMS got 28. The organizers told us that the top 6 are likely to go through, thus putting cut-off margins at about 22/23.

This is going to be held in 4 cities (Bangalore, Delhi and Kolkata being the others) with the top 24 going through. The top 3 from each centre go through immediately, with the others are chosen at the discretion of the organizers. The finals, we are told, is to be held in Delhi sometime in January.

Appeal to fellow BC Quizzers:The writer is in the hunt for DVDs/VCDs/Books dealing exclusively with any of the cricket WCs. Esp. on the wanted list are DVDs containing all the matches/highlights from a particular WC. You can email me at : abhishek AT bcqc DOT org if you can help us out in this regard.

Sample Qs: (wording might not be exact) (Answers in comments)

1. He participated in the first 3 world cup finals in 75,79 and 83 and retired from International cricket in the year 1996. Name him.
2. Name the man of the series of the 92 world cup.(hint: His team did not reach the finals)
3. Name the only player in India's 83 squad who did not get even a single game.

6 comments:

Abhishek said...

1. Dickie Bird (one of the few 'trivia' Qs)
2. Martin Crowe
3. Sunil Valson

J Ramanand said...

Well done all Punekars.

Anonymous said...

Congrats, guys! Crack-its the TV rounds!

Anonymous said...

The questions were set by my good friend, Kunal Malhotra...It was a very narrow topic given as a theme..
NYWAYZ Best Of Luck and Do well

Brijesh

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Anand said...

Whoa ! All for the World Cup wonly--never in the history has so many minds done battle on so few etc..

Personally, I don't enjoy Bhogle's questions whoever sets them--I find them too narrowly defined and too many questions that any team could get right.
30 on 30 . Huh ??

That's right--JR is the definitive votary of the zeitgeist, as far as youth go