Thanks for all your entries, and very well done all round. Here are the answers to our latest quiz.
1. Whom did Steve Waugh accuse of dropping the 1999 World Cup? South Africa’s Herschelle Gibbs, during a crucial Super Six match at Headingley. Waugh was 56 at the time Gibbs dropped him, went on to make 120, and Australia won. They then tied with the Saffers in the Edgbaston semi-final (but went through because they were placed higher in the table) before beating Pakistan in the final.
2. If Middlesex have three seaxes, and Warwickshire have a bear and a staff, who has (a) three pears, and (b) a blue shield with a yellow cross? Worcestershire and Durham.
3. Graham Gooch famously made 333 against India at Lord’s in 1990. But despite England racking up a first innings 653-4 in the process, India avoided the follow-on – after Kapil Dev hit four consecutive sixes off which unfortunate bowler? Eddie Hemmings.
4. Which is the only mode of dismissal in which the batsman is reprieved if, specifically, he/she was genuinely attempting to prevent the ball hitting the stumps? Hitting the ball twice.
5. The journalist Lawrence Booth recently became the youngest person for seventy two years to hold which prestigious cricketing role? Editor of Wisden Almanack. Booth is 36.
6. Before Alastair Cook, who was the last England player to score three centuries in the same Ashes series? Michael Vaughan, in 2002-03.
7. One of the biggest rock bands of the 1990s played several gigs at a test cricket ground, but for personal reasons insisted that it was not referred to by its usual name on either the tickets or marketing material. For a point each, name the band, and the title used for the venue in this context. Oasis, and Lancashire County Cricket Club. As Manchester City diehards, they had no truck whatsoever with the name ‘Old Trafford’.
8. Which cricketer, with 355 test wickets to his name, boasts the forenames Warnakulasuriya Patabendige Ushantha Joseph, but is usually known by another? Chaminda Vaas.
9.In a 1960s championship match between Sussex and Leicestershire, the scorecard was annotated with the remark ‘ball exploded’, after bowler John Snow swapped the cricket ball for a sphere of which substance? Soap.
10. Steve Waugh was the winning captain, and Tony Blair performed the opening ceremony. But for the 1999 World Cup, what was the role of Dave Stewart? He wrote and produced the official tournament anthem, which was released as a single the day after England were knocked out of the tournament.
