SPECTATOR CRICKET QUIZ

1) Captains

Which England Test captain

1) hummed themes from Beethoven's Opus 59 at the wicket?

2) was recently fictitiously portrayed hav- ing an affair with a lady Egyptologist from the British Museum?

3) was falsely accused of contributing Latin verses to the Times?

4) was the grandson of a Poet Laureate?

5) featured in the envoi to a poem by Francis Thompson?

6) became a bishop?

7) called himself after a pop singer?

8) remained a professional doctor throughout his career?

9) was born in Milan?

10) spent most of his life in Hollywood?

2) Firsts

1) Whose first Test century was a score of over 300?

2) Who scored 314 runs in his first Test match?

3) Which batsman who first became a national hero going in at No. 11 later shared a first-wicket Test record?

4) Which regular No. 11 batsman helped to put on 53 and 45 for the first wicket in a Test match, his side's highest opening stands in the series?

5) Who was the first batsman to wear a protective helmet? (Clue: it was made by his wife.)

3) Nicknames

Whose nickname is or was

1) Goose?

2) Tiger?

3) The Croucher?

4) The Big Cat?

5) Loll?

6) Chub?

7) Tich?

8) Typhoon?

9) Cracker?

10) Napper?

4) Men of distinction

1) Which prime minister played for Mid- dlesex?

2) Which prime minister's son played for Middlesex and Surrey?

3) Which England batsman was a dele- gate to the League of Nations?

4) Which future Field-Marshal was caught off the last ball of an historic match at Lord's?

5) Which king of England took a hat trick by bowling three other kings of Eng- land?

6) Which Nobel Prize-winning playwright got into Wisden for playing against Northamptonshire?

The great (24-day) Test

Christopher Booker

7) Which poet earned an obituary in Wisden for having topped the Rugby School averages in 1906?

8) Which public school headmaster who retired this year was beaten by Marx?

9) Which England batsman held the world long jump record?

10) Which England bowler had a son who became a household name as a televi- sion celebrity?

5) Curiosities

1) Who got his county cap for Warwick- shire 14 years after he had won a Test series for his country?

2) Who topped the batting averages for an English season with an average higher than any innings he ever played?

3) Where are Test matches played at the Gaddafi Stadium?

4) Which batsman broke the record for the world's highest score in his third first-class game?

5) In which year was the last (and prob- ably only) occasion when a county side standing bottom of the championship table had batsmen ranking first and second in the national averages?

6) Who was the only player to do what four times until 1985 when he was beaten by a player from his own county?

7) What was unusual about T. P. B. Smith scoring 163 for Essex v. Der- byshire in 1947?

8) Which England cricketer captained Aston Villa to win the FA Cup and died at the wicket at Lord's playing for Surrey Home Guard v. Sussex Home Guard?

9) Apart from the present 17, which other 'county' regularly played first- class cricket?

10) Who scored 300 against his own county?

6) Cricket in fiction

1) Which novel features Porson Jebb whose 'one hundred and sixty-one before lunch in the Sheffield Test match against Australia was a master- piece of amateur batsmanship'?

2) Who was bowled by Quanko Samba for 570 in the West Indies?

3) 'E. Burgess c sub. b Ld Trimingham 81'. Who was the sub.?

4) "Bredon?" Mr Brotherhood was plainly puzzled. "Bredon? I don't re- member ever hearing the name. But didn't I see you play for Oxford in 1911? You have a late cut which is exceedingly characteristic, and I could have taken my oath that the last time I saw you play was at Lord's in 1911, when you made 112." ' What was `Bredon's' real name?

5) Which legendary fictional character took his name from a Warwickshire all-rounder who took 106 wickets in 1913 and was killed on the Somme?

7) One to ten

1) Did they get 'em in singles? 2) Which two Test cricketers played World Cup football for their coun- tries?

3) Who were the last three Etonians to captain England? 4) Which county has had four players who were captains of their countries at the same time?

5) Which five England Test captains since the war scored 300 in an innings?

6) Who won a Test match with a six after leaving a hospital bed to save his side?

7) Who in the course of the same innings in 1985 equalled one world record and broke another by seven minutes? 8) Who in 1985 equalled a world record of eight? 9) Which side failed to break a world record by nine runs, after reaching 429 with two wickets to fall?

10) Who took 10 at an average of 1?

SPECTATOR CRICKET QUIZ

8) What in common What have the following in common

1) Hobbs, Hammond, Hardstaff, Greenidge? 2) Botham, Verity, Underwood, Massie? 3) Boycott, Amis, McEwen, Richards?

4) Deighton, Jackson, Hilton, Hollies? 5) Kent, Lancashire, Surrey, Yorkshire?

9) Puzzles

1) When Edrich scored 12, Compton 1 and Paynter 0, what did Hutton score? 2) Three players — X, Y and Z. X played in a Test match with W. G. Grace and in another with Y. Y, a wicketkeeper, played against Z, an England captain. Z captained a team which included Botham. Can you identify X, Y and Z?

3) Which batsman equalled a world re- cord in the first innings and beat it in the second?

4) Which bowler equalled a world Test record in the first innings and beat it in the second?

5) Which is the only county side to have been represented by 11 players of Test rank in the same season?

10) The highest

1) For the highest number of what do Waheed Mirza and Monsoor Akhtar hold the record?

2) For the highest number of what is Ian Botham currently chasing Lance Gibbs (a somewhat dubious distinc- tion)?

3) Which has been the only English season when the highest total — a mere 451 — failed to reach 500?

4) Which side scored the highest total 581 — without any batsman scoring a century?

5) What is the highest total made when no batsman did not score a century?

11) The greatest

Who were the subjects of these eulogies 1) 'If "W.G." was a Joachim of cricke-

ters, then is not a very Kreisler of them, and his every innings a sheer waltz caprice.' (Neville Cardus) 2) 'If I had my choice of a player to win the match off the last ball, whether it required a catch, a six or wicket, I would pick only one player, (John Arlott) 3) 'There remains the inimitable That no one can approach his record as an all-round cricketer goes without saying . . . if I had to choose anyone to play for my life, as the saying is, I

would name without hesita-

tion. In him genius based on strictly orthodox principles found almost per- fect expression.' (E. W. Swanton) 4) `To me he is quite simply the great cricketer who began playing in the last twenty years, and that by a long distance. In the word "cricketer" I count not only batting, bowling and fielding. In these combined arts there is not one, not Bradman, not Constan- tine, who could stand a full unbiassed comparison with (R. C. Robertson-Glasgow) `As I walked home I used to wonder 5) how one cricketer could so capture the imagination above all others; and the imagination, moreover, of men so steeped in the game that they were the severest of critics. Yet even years after 's death they spoke wistfully of him was unique in that nobody ever criticised him as a cricketer or as a man.'

(Jack Fingleton)

Prizes

First

Complete Wisden Anthology, 4 volumes, edited by Benny Green (1864-1900, 1900- 1940, 1940-1963, 1963-1982), published by Queen Anne Press, price £120.

Second

A case of Coulanges La Vineuse 1983.

Third

The Wisden Book of Test Cricket 1877-1984, compiled and edited by Bill Frindall, pub- lished by Queen Anne Press; together with The Lords Taverners' 50 Greatest Cricketers 1945-1983, introduced by HRH Prince Philip, signed by Colin Cowdrey, pub- lished by Heinemman/Quixote.

Each of the three winners will also receive a copy of the 1985 Wisden. A bottle of champagne will be awarded to the sender of the first letter received which draws attention to a factual error in the quiz.

Rules

1. No employee of the Spectator, or their relatives, or any agent of the Spectator, can enter.

2. The closing date for entries is 10 September 1985: this is a 24-day Test.

3. In the case of several correct entries being received, the winners shall be decided by lot.

4. The judges' decision is final and no correspondence concerning entries can be entered into.

5. The names of winners, and the correct answers, will be published in the Spec- tator.

6. Entries should be addressed to: Spec- tator Cricket Quiz, The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL.