Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Answers to the Blog-Cricket-Quiz-5

Answer 1: Rahul Sharad Dravid as of today 05/21/2006, played 99 tests for India. Although he played 100 tests altogether, one of them was for ICC World XI. His Record as of today reads :

Answer 2: David Houghton of Zimbabwe. Houghton captained Zimbabwe in its inaugural test match played against India, at Harare, 1992/93. He made 121 & 41* in that test. In 1996 he became coach of the Zimbabwe National side and in 1997 Zimbabwe Cricket Union made the country’s national coach full-time in addition to his continued duty of being a player on the national side.

Answer 3: Manoj Prabhakar of India, opened both batting and bowling in a test match 21 times and 38 times in One Day Internationals.

Answer 4: They handed out the final decision that led to history’s only two tied test matches. Colin Hoy declared Australia’s Ian Meckiff as run out in the 1st Test of the 1960-61 series at Brisbane against West Indies whereas in the 1st test of the 1986/87 series between India and Australia at Madras, Vikram Raju raised his finger for an lbw appeal against Maninder Singh of India of the bowling of Greg Matthews.

Answer 5: Australia’s Billy Murdoch holds the record for taking the first ever catch by a substitute fielder in test cricket. The uniqueness about the catch is that he actually was the captain of the Australian side and was substituting for England to catch one of his team members HJH Scott of the bowling of AG Steel in the 2nd test of the 1884 Ashes at Lord’s.

Answer 6: Jeff Thomson and Brett Lee.

Answer 7: Duncan Fletcher of Zimbabwe. Now England's Coach.

Answer 8: Nilesh Kulkarni. He is the only Indian cricketer to have taken a wicket with the first ball he bowled in a test match. In the first test of the 1996/97 series against Sri Lanka played at R. Premadasa Stadium, Khettarama, Colombo , with the very first ever delivery he bowled in test cricket he had Marvin Atapattu caught behind by Nayan Mongia for 26 and became the 12th bowler in test history to do so. Since then only one other bowler, MKGCP Lakshita of Sri Lanka achieved that feat .

Answer 9 : Ian Healey of Australia and Alec Stewart of England. Title of their autobiographies is Playing for Keeps.


Answer 10: Douglas Jardine born at Bombay, Maharashtra, India. Colin Cowdrey at Bangalore, Karnataka,I ndia and Nasser Hussain at Madras, Tamil Nadu.

Answer 11: Shane Warne of Australia, Chetan Chauhan of India, and Chaminda Vaas of Sri Lanka. Their record as of today reads.


Answer 12: George W. Bush. He actually was participating in a cricket workshop held at the US Embassy Grounds with players from Islamabad College for Boys during his visit to Pakistan in March 2006.


Answer 13: Courtney Walsh of West Indies and Brett Lee of Australia.

Answer 14: St. Lawrence Ground, Cantebury, Kent County’s Home. Carl Hooper of West Indies cleared the lime tree in 1992.

Answer 15: Percey Jeeves and P.G Wodehouse. The fictional character is the Bertie Wooster's famous butler Jeeves

Answer 16: Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle. See the pedestal photograph zoomed in below.

Answer 17: Bernard James Tindal Bosanquet. Who is believed to have invented the googly was describing his discovery. It is also referred as Bosie in his honor.

Answer 18: Samuel Barclay Beckett, won the Nobel rize for literature in 1969.

Answer 19: Althanasios John Traicos, perhaps the only cricketer to have born in Egypt played for South Africa before they were banned from representative cricket in 1970. Exactly after 22 years and 222 days ( hence the clue “2” test matches) he played in tests again, this time for Zimbabwe.

Answer 20: Sunil Gavaskar. The cricketer in the picture is Zaheer Abbas of Pakistan. Gavaskar dismissed Zaheer Abbas for 96 in the Faisalabad Test of 1978/79 series getting him caught by his long time opening partner Chetan Chauhan. During the same tour, in the 2nd ODI at Sialkot Gavaskar took his only ODI wicket by having him caught by Kapil Dev for 48.

Answer 21: Charles Aubrey Smith of England, Henry Melville Taberer and John Anderson of South Africa.

Answer 22: 32 yr old Robbie Williams is rumoured to have started dating 21 yr old Minki van der Westhuizen, nick named as Slinky Minki, after she and South African skipper Graeme Smith ended their love affair.

Answer 23: Rachel Flintoff. Andrew Flintoff tattoed her name as well as his two daughters’ names Holly and Corey on his left arm.

Answer 24: M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bangalore. Formerly known as Karnataka Cricket Association Stadium, it hosted the 1st test of the 1974-75 series between India and West Indies, in which Gordon Greenidge and Vivian Richards made their test debut. Greendge made 93 & 107 and Richards gave no indicaton of his future batting exploits by making just 4 & 3.

Sunil Gavaskar bid adieu to test cricket on the same ground in the fifth and final test of the 1986/87 series against Pakistan by hitting a classic 96 on a treacherous turning track with extras being the next highest score of 27. Azharuddin’s 26 was the next highest score in that innings as Iqbal Qasim and Tauseff Ahmed bowled India out for 204 while chasing a modest target of 221.

Answer 25: David Stuart Sheppard the Test Player and David Robert Shepherd the Test Umpire.

Answer 26 : Sachin Tendulkar on Ajith Tendulkar. Name of the book is Making of a Cricketer.

Answer 27: Shane Warne’s Ball of the century to Mike Gatting on June 4th 1993 during the first test of the 1993 Ashes at Old Trafford. Read the following description on Legends Memorabillia website which says it all. “ From the moment it commenced its flight, the ball started to drift alarmingly through the air and in towards Gatting’s pads. It then dipped suddenly, before biting into the turf. Gatting watched it closely and followed the drift, playing a defensive shot, anticipating the spin off the wicket. He could have had no idea of the prodigious amount of turn extracted after the ball bit into the turf. Completely miscalculating it, the ball shot past his bat – cannoning into the top of the off stump, neatly removing one bail as the Australians went up as one in sheer unbridled jubilation. Gatting could only look blankly at his stumps, trying to work the geometry of impossible angles in his head – but far too late. The ball, Shane Warne’s first against England, now occupies its own place in Ashes folklore.”

Answer 28: Danish Kaneria of Pakistan (156 wickets, 126 runs in 36 tests), BS Chandrashekar of India (242 wickets, 167 runs in 58 tests) and Bruce Reid of Australia(113 wickets, 93 runs in 27 tests) are currently the only bowlers to have taken 100 or more wickets in tests and to have scored fewer runs than the number of wickets they have taken. Chris Martin of New Zealand is one wicket away from joining the club. In 31 tests he played till now Martin took 99 wickets and made just 48 runs.

Answer 29: All the fielders are in the slips. Dennis Lillee is the bowler, Australia's Ian Chappell was the captain of his team and the opp0sing side was New Zealand. Peter Petherick was the batsman and NZ were 9 down when Ian Chappell placed this field setting in the 2nd Test at Eden Park in 1976/77 series. At least this is the first ever time such picture was taken if not first time all fielders were put in slip postiions.3 3 years later Steve Waugh employed the same field setting for Zimbabwe’s David Mutandera , when Zimbabwe was reeling at 98 for 9 and Damien Fleming was bowling in an One Day International on Oct 23 1999. See the pictures below.


Question 30: Brett Lee & Andrew Flintoff. Australia just lost the 2nd test of the 2005 Ashes played at Birmingham by 2 runs. With three runs needed to win Steve Harmison had Kasprowicz caught behind. Following picture captures the jubilation of England team.


Thanks to all those who responded to the quiz.

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