It was a hot Saturday afternoon and the mercury was rising. Qryptiq was all padded up for the Open Cricket Quiz at the St Stephen’s College as part of their annual quizzing fest, Quizzotica. Unlike the usual tardiness of DU quizzes, we were given the indication of the quiz starting on time. But alas, it wasn’t to be as a filler quiz ended up lasting an hour. And as we were lining up to start, the co-ordinator requested a shift of venue, similar to a batsman moving out of the way at the last moment much to the frustration of the bowler steaming in, to accommodate another quiz. However, after all that pre-match hullabaloo (including the lack of an audio system), the preliminary rounds of the OPEN CRICKET QUIZ began with 20 questions instead of the usual 25, as the quizmaster was too busy the night before evident from the lipstick smudged all over his face..NOT[ that was a cover up for the gulal thanks to the holi party in office the previous day]. Piyush Chawla bashing was peppered throughout the quiz (the perils of being Dhoni’s sweetheart). The prelims was a closely contested affair with only 2.5 marks separating the top 6 teams. There were some usual suspects in the finals. Team A, B and C were quick off the blocks with little separating them, while other three lagged behind without opening their account in the initial part of the quiz. However, the Brothers of Bhatta displayed their consistency throughout the quiz and their experience showed, as they switched to top gear in the final round with a murderous performance, scoring 21 out of a possible 24 points. Team E leapfrogged into contention in the penultimate round cracking all the answers but missed out in the final round. Team D they were never really in the game, guess they had an off day. Team C were always knocking on the door with some fabulous answers, they looked like hardcore Cricket Quizzers. Would like to see more of them in other quizzes as well. They ended up tied for second spot with Team F, who gave some neat answers to claim that spot (the teams decided to split the pot after some careful, structured analysis of the opportunity cost involved)
Going by the rule of thumb that ‘90% of the questions should be workable and answerable’ and coupled with occasional humor, arguments and above all fabulous answers (even though the absence of sledging would have lighted up things), the quiz had it all. We would like to thank IMS for partnering with us.
Final scores in descending order- 46 (Team B), 26 (Team C and Team F), 24 (Team A)