Sometime in last December I was inquiring with a few of my friends the price of a 150cc bike. That was when I was doing a study of the 2-wheeler industry for my Marketing course. A few months before that, I was even contemplating on switching to a 150cc bike but the 70k price tag was too steep and I was content with my Splendor. Little did I realise that some months down the line, I’d become the proud owner of a Hero Honda Hunk.
It all began on Friday when Gaaru sent an email to the PGP1 mailing list informing us of a Cricket Quiz organized by Dinamalar. Very soon I got a partner in Muthu and with Gaaru teaming up with Vignesh, the four of us headed to Vepery at as early as 10:30 AM to reserve seats. We waited and waited and finally at 12:30 the registration process began and the quiz that was supposed to begin at 12:30 started an hour late. Quiz master Dr. Sumanth took us by complete surprise when he announced that it was going to be an IPL quiz and not a cricket quiz (after all, IPL is not cricket, they say).
20 questions in the prelims. Some were complete sitters such as “how many foreign players are allowed in the playing XI”. Some related to stats such as “player with the maximum number of M0M awards in all IPL editions”, “number of Indian umpires in the current IPL”. There was a visual question on the Rajasthan Royals mascot which we left unanswered. Part points in a few questions saw us through with a score of 13, the maximum being 14.5.
We did not make much headway in the first two rounds of the finals. We lagged behind but bounced back in the third round which was a visual one. It helped that other teams did not know what Godfrey Phillips’ association with IPL is (for the record, it is the company owned by Lalit Modi) or the face behind the name D.Y.Patil. We surged to the lead position and had a chance to consolidate it in the next round of split visuals. The upper half of one player’s face and the lower half of another player’s face would be presented and we had to find out the two players. There was one such question in the prelims in which Alfonso Thomas and Wayne Parnell were indistinguishable in the top half and while I guessed the lower one as Juan Theron, it turned out to be Morne Morkel. We got a lot of passed questions but did not capitalize on it for the sole reason that the lower half was unrecognizable. Not many teams cracked this round and when our turn came, I got the upper half right as Ryan McLaren. I gambled a bit by answering the lower half as Shaun Marsh and it turned out to be correct. We stayed in the lead till the end from then and emerged winners.
Then came the super round where the six people from the three top teams would compete individually for a Hero Honda Hunk. A buzzer round, a press of the buzzer followed by a correct answer gives 15 points while a wrong one would lead to -5. I played it safe and answered only one question thus keeping my 15 points safe. It was because of a partial lack of knowledge that I did not press the buzzer for the other questions. The fellow sitting near me got two right but messed it all up by getting four wrong. For a moment it appeared there would be a tie-breaker as the scorers messed up with the total scores but a double check by the quiz master ensured there was only one winner and that was me.
The audience were kept engaged with both passed and exclusive questions that earned them chocolates and facial kits. There was one person who kept giving out all answers right when the chance came and the quiz master felt he should have been there up stage. A kid in the audience thought that Ranji Trophy is an IPL-like competition with an owner in Ranjit Singh (mascot of Kings XI) while an old lady felt Sachin Tendulkar was the most unsuccessful captain in the IPL (he is actually the most fined captain). Some of the responses were amusing.
My dream of owing a 150cc bike has come true in a totally unexpected manner. I will have to sell off my Splendor. The bond between a man and his bike is a special one and in my case, it is one that lasted 7 long years. While I have been caring enough to service it once in 2 months initially, it later began to wear out due to disuse. It has undergone spoilage due to rain, sun, improper maintenance, irregular servicing, irresponsible packers & movers etc but it rides on and on, like an ageless warhorse. Long live my Splendor.
A sample of the questions that were asked
- Two players from the same team who took hat-tricks in the 2008 IPL (Balaji and Ntini )
- Minimum base price for a player ( $20000 )
- Country, apart from India, that is financially benefitting from the IPL (Mauritius)
- Number of Indian umpires in the IPL (7)
- Visual–name of mascot of Royals (Moochu Singh)
- Visual–Players’ faces-Alfonso Thomas top-half and Morne Morkel bottom-half.
- Director of Kochi’s theme video and the singer ( Director Priyadarshan, singer-none. There were no lyrics in the song )
- Team to win Fairplay award twice (CSK)
- Team to have maximum wicket takers in two editions (Deccan Chargers-R.P Singh 2009, Pragyan Ojha 2010 )
Filed under: cricket | Tagged: cricket, IPL, quiz, sunday | 2 Comments »