The first game was between Team India and Team Pakistan which was cheered by supporters from both the nations where Pakistan got the better of India
Anis Sajan with the teams who participated in the quiz. — Supplied photo
The Super Over Cricket Quiz of Khaleej Times hosted by cricket aficionado Anis Sajan, who is fondly known as Mr.Cricket UAE, was a huge hit not only among the 16 participants but also by the full-house audience who attended the event at the Khaleej Times head office on Saturday.
The event started with the National Anthem of the UAE and then a pledge taken by all the 16 participants to play the cricket quiz in the right spirit.
Eight teams — India, Pakistan, New Zealand, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Australia, England and Bangladesh — were divided into groups of four teams each where each team got to play three games each. Each game had five questions which included a bouncer question, giving the teams to score four runs and the other questions gave them two runs.
The first game was between Team India and Team Pakistan which was cheered by supporters from both the nations where Pakistan got the better of India.
After the initial rounds, Australia beat Afghanistan in the first semifinal and England got the better of Pakistan in the second semifinals. And it was the second biggest rivalry clash where England beat Australia in the final to lay their hands on the coveted Khaleej Times and Mr. Cricket UAE cricket quiz trophy.
Anup Nagpurkar and Insha Shaikh made the England team win by a massive margin, while Priti Dugar and Sinan Nathani, who were representing Australia finished as runners-up.
The quiz masters Mr.Cricket UAE Anis Sajan and Rituraj Borkakoty, Deputy News Editor, Khaleej Times, threw tough questions to every team but all the contestants were up to the challenge and battled out hard and gave the right answers.
Once the questions were asked, the teams had to press the buzzer to get the first opportunity to answer and that’s were most of the teams erred, either being late or forgetting some answers in excitement.
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An interesting bit about the quiz was that if a team gave a wrong answer, they were penalized two runs, which effected their overall score tally. Four matches ended in a super over which was the tie breaker question and one game went in to a double super over which showed how exciting and thrilling each game was, said Anis Sajan, who was the brainchild behind this cricket quiz.
Rituraj said he was astonished to see the immense knowledge among each contestant and that’s why most of the matches went to the wire.
The winners got exciting prizes but everyone was a winner as even the crowd who were present to cheer the team got an opportunity to be part of the quiz by answering questions which were posed to them.