Sports GK Mixed Quiz: Set 24

The correct answer is C, Rajasthan Royals. Rajasthan Royals, captained by the Australian leg-spinner Shane Warne and widely regarded as the weakest squad on paper that season, won the first title in 2008 by beating Chennai Super Kings in the final. Option A, Chennai Super Kings, led by Mahendra Singh Dhoni, were the losing finalists that year, which makes this the most tempting wrong answer. Option B, Mumbai Indians, did not reach the final in the first season. Option D, the Deccan Chargers of Hyderabad, finished at the bottom of the table in 2008 and then won the title in 2009 in South Africa, a reversal worth remembering because the two seasons are often mixed up. The other four teams of that first season were Delhi Daredevils, Kings XI Punjab, Kolkata Knight Riders and Royal Challengers Bangalore.

The correct answer is A, Lahore. The first edition was staged in 1924 at Lahore, then the chief city of undivided Punjab, under the name the All India Olympic Games, and its purpose was to create a national meet from which an Indian team could be picked for the Olympic Games. For the next decade and a half the competition moved every two years between the large cities of British India. Option B, Bombay, is the strongest distractor because the 1940 edition was held there, and that is the edition at which the name was changed to the National Games; the city is right for the renaming and wrong for the founding. Option C, Calcutta, hosted an edition in the late nineteen thirties and was then the largest city in the country, which makes it plausible but incorrect. Option D, Madras, also hosted editions in the early decades but was not the venue of the first. Fix the pair as Lahore for 1924 and Bombay for 1940.

The correct answer is A, gaur, the Indian bison. Moga was modelled on the gaur, the large wild cattle of the Western Ghats which is the state animal of Goa, and it was chosen as the mascot when Goa hosted the 37th National Games in 2023. Option B, the Asiatic lion, was the basis of Savaj, the mascot of the Gujarat edition of 2022, and the lion belongs to Gujarat alone in the wild. Option C, the Nilgiri tahr, is the state animal of Tamil Nadu and a mountain goat of the Western Ghats, which makes it a plausible southern choice but it has not been a National Games mascot. Option D, the Himalayan monal, is the state bird of Uttarakhand and was the basis of Mauli, the mascot of the 38th edition in 2025. The reliable shortcut once again is to ask which animal belongs to the host state.

The correct answer is B, Lala Amarnath. Lala Amarnath scored 118 against England at the Bombay Gymkhana ground in 1933, in the first Test match ever played on Indian soil and in his own debut Test, and it was the first century by an Indian in Test cricket. He later captained the first Indian side to tour Australia in 1947 and 1948 and the team that won India's first Test series, at home against Pakistan in 1952. Option A, C.K. Nayudu, captained India in its first Test in 1932 but did not make the first century. Option C, Vinoo Mankad, is remembered for the record opening partnership with Pankaj Roy and for the match at Lord's in 1952 that is still called Mankad's Test. Option D, Polly Umrigar, scored 223 against New Zealand in 1955, among the earliest Test double centuries made by an Indian. Examiners often group these four names, so fix one landmark against each.

The correct answer is A, Brendon McCullum. In the very first match of the league, on 18 April 2008 at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru, the New Zealand wicketkeeper-batsman opened for Kolkata Knight Riders against Royal Challengers Bangalore and made 158 not out, which remained one of the highest scores in the competition for years. The innings is credited with winning the new league its first audience. Option B, Virender Sehwag, was the captain of Delhi Daredevils that season and scored heavily, but not the first hundred. Option C, Adam Gilchrist, captained the Deccan Chargers and made a famous century in the second season, in South Africa. Option D, Sanath Jayasuriya, played a celebrated innings for Mumbai Indians in 2008 but after McCullum s. The three facts to hold together are 18 April 2008, Bengaluru and 158 not out.

The correct answer is A, the United States and Europe. The Ryder Cup is the biennial match play contest named after the English seed merchant Samuel Ryder, first played in 1927; the European side was originally Great Britain alone and was widened to the whole of Europe in 1979, and no prize money is paid to the players. Option B is wrong because no major team trophy is played between the United States and Asia. Option C is wrong because the Great Britain and Ireland side plays the United States in the amateur Walker Cup and Curtis Cup, not Australia. Option D is wrong because the Presidents Cup, begun in 1994, is the one between the United States and an International team of players from outside Europe, and it is this pair that candidates most often swap.

The correct answer is B, Uttarakhand. The 38th National Games were held in Uttarakhand in 2025, with competition spread over Dehradun, Haldwani, Rudrapur, Haridwar and other centres, and with Mauli, a Himalayan monal, as the mascot; the monal is the state bird of Uttarakhand. Option A, Himachal Pradesh, is the other Himalayan state of the western range and is offered because the two are frequently interchanged, but it did not host this edition. Option C, Goa, hosted the previous edition, the 37th, in 2023, so it is the closest wrong answer in the sequence. Option D, Madhya Pradesh, has hosted Khelo India Youth Games but not a National Games edition of this period. The recent chain to memorise is Kerala in 2015 for the 35th, Gujarat in 2022 for the 36th, Goa in 2023 for the 37th and Uttarakhand in 2025 for the 38th.

The correct answer is C, Nadia Comaneci of Romania, who received the first perfect ten in Olympic gymnastics at the Montreal Games of 1976, at the age of fourteen; the scoreboard of the day could show only three digits and displayed her mark as 1.00. A is wrong because Larisa Latynina of the Soviet Union, who competed in the 1950s and 1960s, is remembered for a different record, the most Olympic medals won by any gymnast, eighteen in all. B is wrong because Olga Korbut, also of the Soviet Union, was the star of the Munich Games of 1972 and made the sport popular on television, but she was not awarded a ten at the Olympics. D is wrong because Simone Biles competed long after the ten-point system was abolished in 2006 in favour of open-ended scoring that adds a difficulty mark to an execution mark, so a perfect ten could not be given to her.

The correct answer is B, the leading wicket-taker of the season. The Purple Cap is worn through the season by the bowler who has taken the most wickets so far, passing from one player to another as the matches go on, and the bowler who leads at the end keeps it. Option A describes the Orange Cap, which works in exactly the same way for the batsman with the most runs, and swapping the two caps is the commonest mistake on this question. Option C is wrong because there is no cap for fielding, although the league does give match awards for catches and for the best fielder of a match in some seasons. Option D refers to the most valuable player award, which is decided on a points system covering runs, wickets and impact, and which is not a cap at all. Both caps belong to one season only and do not carry forward.

The correct answer is C, Sakshi Malik, who won the bronze in the fifty-eight kilogram freestyle category at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in 2016, coming back from behind in the last seconds of her bout. Option A is wrong, although Geeta Phogat holds two other firsts: she was the first Indian woman wrestler to win a Commonwealth Games gold, at Delhi in 2010, and the first to qualify for the Olympic Games, in 2012. Option B is wrong because Vinesh Phogat is a Commonwealth and Asian Games gold medallist and a world championship medallist, but the Olympic first belongs to Sakshi Malik. Option D is wrong because Babita Kumari is a Commonwealth Games gold medallist without an Olympic medal. The safe rule is that for wrestling the Olympic first is Malik and the Commonwealth first is Geeta Phogat.

The correct answer is B, Services Sports Control Board. The Services Sports Control Board enters a single contingent known simply as Services, made up of sportspersons serving in the Army, the Navy and the Air Force, and because the armed forces recruit and train athletes from across the country this team has been among the most successful in the medal table across editions. Option A names the Railways Sports Promotion Board, which does run a large sports establishment and fields teams in national championships of individual federations, but it is the Services contingent that is the standing non-state team at the National Games. Option C is wrong because the Sports Authority of India trains athletes and supports the event rather than entering a team of its own. Option D names a combined universities side, which belongs to the inter-university championships and to the Khelo India University Games rather than to the National Games.

The correct answer is B, visual impairment. Goalball is played by two teams of three, all of them wearing eyeshades so that every player competes on the same footing, and the ball has bells inside it so that it can be tracked by sound; the hall must therefore stay silent while play is on. The sport exists only in the Paralympic programme and has no Olympic version, which is what makes it a favourite one-liner. Option A is wrong because athletes with hearing impairment compete at the Deaflympics, a separate competition first held in 1924. Option C is wrong because athletes with intellectual impairment have their own classes in some sports and their own Special Olympics. Option D is wrong because limb deficiency is unrelated to a sport designed around sound.

The correct answer is B, South Africa. The 2009 season coincided with the general election in India, and because the police could not guarantee security for both the polls and the matches, the whole tournament was shifted to South Africa at short notice. The Deccan Chargers of Hyderabad, who had finished last the previous year, won that season. Option A, the United Arab Emirates, hosted the full 2020 season during the coronavirus pandemic and the first part of the 2014 season during another general election, so it is the strongest distractor and the two moves abroad must be kept apart by year. Option C, England, has never hosted an IPL season. Option D, Sri Lanka, hosted part of the Champions League Twenty20 but not a season of the IPL. The pairing to remember is 2009 with South Africa and 2020 with the Emirates.

The correct answer is B, 2014. The Pro Kabaddi League, a city-franchise competition played on a mat before a television audience, began in 2014 and is widely credited with turning kabaddi from a rural sport into a professional one with full-time players and sponsorships. Its arrival also raised the profile of raiders and defenders enough for them to be asked about in general knowledge papers. A is wrong because 2012 is the year of the London Olympics and carries no kabaddi milestone. C is wrong because 2016, although a busy year for Indian sport with the Rio Olympics and the South Asian Games at Guwahati where kho-kho was included, is two years after the league started. D is wrong because 2018 is the year of the Jakarta Asian Games, by which time the league had already completed several seasons.

The correct answer is B, 2018. The first edition of the Khelo India School Games was held at New Delhi in 2018 under the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, and from the following edition at Pune the competition was broadened and renamed the Khelo India Youth Games, with under-seventeen and under-twenty-one categories and a long-term scholarship for selected athletes. Option A, 2014, is too early and belongs to no edition of these Games. Option C, 2020, is the year the Khelo India University Games began, with the first edition at Bhubaneswar in Odisha, so it is right for a different competition in the same family and is the commonest trap here. Option D, 2022, is the year of the 36th National Games in Gujarat, which is a separate and senior event. Keep the family in order: School Games in 2018, renamed Youth Games from the next edition, University Games from 2020.

The correct answer is B, the 1500 metre freestyle, often called the metric mile, which covers thirty lengths of a 50 metre pool and is the longest event on the Olympic pool programme. Option A is wrong because the 800 metre freestyle is shorter, though it is now held for both men and women; for many Games it was the women-only distance while 1500 metres was men-only. Option C is wrong because the 400 metre individual medley, demanding as it is, covers only eight lengths. Option D is a deliberate trap: the 10 kilometre marathon swim, added to the Olympic programme at Beijing in 2008, is indeed the longest Olympic swimming race of all, but it belongs to the open water discipline and is contested in a river, lake or sea, not in a pool. Read such questions for the words "in the pool" before answering.

The correct answer is B, Baroda. In the Ranji Trophy final of the 1946-47 season, Vijay Hazare and Gul Mohammad came together for Baroda against Holkar and put on 577 runs for the fourth wicket, a stand that stood as the highest partnership in first-class cricket anywhere for many years and is still the benchmark figure quoted from Indian domestic cricket. Option C, Holkar, is the side they made the runs against, a princely team from Indore that was among the strongest of that era, so it is the natural trap. Option A, Bombay, is the most successful team in the history of the trophy but had no part in this particular record. Option D, Hyderabad, is unconnected with it. Hazare later gave his name to the domestic fifty-over championship, which is the usual follow-up question in the same paper.

The correct answer is B, more boundaries hit in the final. England and New Zealand finished level after fifty overs each at Lord's, and the Super Over that followed was tied as well. The playing conditions then in force gave the title to the side with more fours and sixes in the match, and that was England, who won their first World Cup this way.

Option A, net run rate, decides places in a group table, never the result of a knockout match. Option C is wrong because wickets are not counted in a Super Over tie-break in this fashion, and the rule as written spoke of boundaries. Option D, a bowl-out, was used in Twenty20 cricket before the Super Over was introduced, most famously in the 2007 T20 World Cup match between India and Pakistan, but it had long been dropped by 2019. The boundary-count rule was removed after this final, so 2019 remains the only World Cup settled in this manner.

The correct answer is A, the New Delhi edition of 1985. Until then the National Games had been a meet of limited scale; the 1985 edition at New Delhi remodelled them on the Olympic pattern, with a much longer list of disciplines, a whole state rather than a single city as host, a torch relay, formal opening and closing ceremonies, a mascot and a medal table arranged by state, and that is the structure every later edition has followed. Option B, the Bombay edition of 1940, is a genuine milestone but for the renaming of the competition from the All India Olympic Games to the National Games, not for its restructuring. Option C, the Pune edition of 1994, was held well after the change and simply continued the new pattern. Option D, the Guwahati edition of 2007, was notable as a north-eastern host but again brought no change of structure. The three dates to separate are 1924, 1940 and 1985.

The correct answer is B, states and units. The Santosh Trophy, started in 1941 and named after the Maharaja of Santosh in undivided Bengal, is the national football championship of India, played between teams representing the state associations and certain institutional units such as the services and the railways. It is the oldest surviving national competition of its kind in Indian football.

Option A, clubs of the top division, describes the national league competitions rather than the Santosh Trophy. Option C, schools, is the domain of the Subroto Cup, begun in 1960 and organised in New Delhi for school teams from across the country and abroad. Option D, universities, points to inter university championships organised by the Association of Indian Universities, which are separate from the Santosh Trophy.