Domestic Cricket and the IPL: Trophies and Facts

The correct answer is B, Ranjitsinhji. Kumar Shri Ranjitsinhji, the Jam Saheb of Nawanagar, played for Sussex and for England at the end of the nineteenth century and was among the first cricketers of Indian birth to be ranked with the greatest batsmen of his time. When the Board started a national first-class championship in 1934-35 it named the competition after him, and the trophy itself was presented by Bhupinder Singh, the Maharaja of Patiala. Option A, Duleepsinhji, was his nephew and also played for Sussex and England; the Duleep Trophy, begun in 1961-62, carries his name, and the two princes are the commonest pair to be confused here. Option C, Vijay Merchant, gives his name to the under-16 championship. Option D, C. K. Nayudu, captained India in her first Test match in 1932 and gives his name to the under-23 championship.

The correct answer is B, 1934-35. The Board of Control for Cricket in India set up a national first-class championship in 1934 and the first season was played in 1934-35, with Bombay winning the title. Option A, 1928-29, is the year the Board itself was founded, in 1928, and is the natural wrong answer for anyone who remembers one date and uses it for the other. Option C, 1947-48, is the season after independence and has no special link with the trophy. Option D, 1959-60, is the year the Irani Cup was started, to mark twenty-five years of the Ranji Trophy, which is itself a useful cross-check: 1934-35 plus twenty-five seasons lands on 1959-60. Keep the sequence in order: the Board in 1928, the Ranji Trophy in 1934-35, the Irani Cup in 1959-60 and the Duleep Trophy in 1961-62.

The correct answer is B, the Ranji Trophy champion and a Rest of India side. The Irani Cup is a single first-class match in which the team that has just won the Ranji Trophy meets a Rest of India eleven drawn from all the other state teams, and a good performance in it has long been treated as a step towards national selection. It was begun in 1959-60 to mark twenty-five years of the Ranji Trophy and is named after Z. R. Irani, a patron of the Board. Option A describes the zonal format in which the Duleep Trophy was originally played, between North, South, East, West and Central Zone. Option C names the selected sides used in the Duleep Trophy in later years. Option D is invented; the winners of the one-day and Twenty20 championships do not meet each other, as the two tournaments stand separately.

The correct answer is C, the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy. Begun in 2006-07, soon after Twenty20 became an international format, it is the championship in which the state teams play the twenty-over game, and it is named after Syed Mushtaq Ali of Indore, who was the first Indian to score a Test century abroad. Option A, the Vijay Hazare Trophy, is the fifty-over one-day championship for the same state teams and began in 2002-03. Option B, the Deodhar Trophy, is also a one-day tournament, named after D. B. Deodhar and long played between zonal sides. Option D, the Duleep Trophy, is first-class cricket over several days. The set to memorise is three tiers for three formats: the Ranji Trophy for first-class cricket, the Vijay Hazare Trophy for fifty overs and the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy for Twenty20.

The correct answer is B, under-19. The Cooch Behar Trophy is the multi-day inter-state championship for players under the age of nineteen and is named after the Maharaja of Cooch Behar, an early patron of the game in India. It is the stage on which most Indian Test players are first noticed. Option A, under-16, is the age group of the Vijay Merchant Trophy. Option C, under-23, is the age group of the Col. C. K. Nayudu Trophy, which is the first-class level of age-group cricket and sits just below the senior Ranji Trophy. Option D, under-25, is not an age group the Board runs a national championship for. The ladder worth memorising runs upward in order: the Vijay Merchant Trophy at under-16, the Cooch Behar Trophy at under-19, the Col. C. K. Nayudu Trophy at under-23 and then the Ranji Trophy at senior level.

The correct answer is B, 2008. The Board of Control for Cricket in India announced the league in 2007 and the first season was played from April to June 2008, with Lalit Modi as the first chairman and commissioner and eight city franchises taking part. Option A, 2007, is the year of the announcement and also the year India won the first Twenty20 World Cup, which is why many candidates mark it; the announcement and the first season fall in different years, so the distinction matters. Option C, 2009, is the year of the second season, which was moved to South Africa because the general election in India was held at the same time. Option D, 2010, is the third season. The chain to remember is announcement in 2007, first season and Rajasthan Royals as champions in 2008, and South Africa in 2009.

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, 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 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 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, 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.