BENGALURU Tuesday 25 August 2009
DC
40
TRIVIA In tennis, the ad court is the left side of the court for each player, and the deuce court is the right side of the court.
sport
Bengaluru’s top 4 Sri Kumaran, Doddakalsandra: Pranav V. Chakravarthy, Bharath M.M.
With renowned quizmaster Dyu D’Cunha whipping up the excitement with sharp ones, the city teens were more than up for the task as they fended off the faster ones with élan, knocking off the questions in a jiffy
Presidency School, R.T. Nagar: Sanjit Shankar, Sharan Chennur. Sri Kumaran, Tata Silk Farm: Sunil Cavale S., Bharath R. Florence Public School: Abdul Wahab Shaikh, Himakar Prakash.
Whizkids lap up T20
CHALLENGE It’s a great feeling, the win is yet to sink in. Some questions were challenging, but it just added to the excitement. This is our first big win and our first national tournament and Mumbai should be a good experience for us.
MAXIN MATHEW DECCAN CHRONICLE
I
f the names ‘Sanjeevani’, ‘Gaminee’ and ‘Amar’ only remind you of those dreary masala K-serials that have plagued Indian television, then it’s time you brushed up your general knowledge. While you may have spent a good five minutes or more racking your brains for the answer, it took a ninth grader less than two seconds to blurt out that they are different variations of kabaddi. Just Two Seconds. Whew! Such was the quality of quizzing during the Deccan Chargers T-20 inter-school national challenge, billed as the country’s largest sports quizzing event ever. After a stupendous turnout in Kolkata and Chennai, namma Bengaluru too didn’t disappoint as avid quizzers and child prodigies from among the city’s top 25 schools racked their grey cells at the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan on Monday. The atmosphere was buzzing with a frenzied sense of excitement as low whispers, gentle murmurs and long drones engulfed the auditorium in last minute preparations before the preliminary round.
City champions Pranav and Bharath. — PHOTOGRAPHS BY R. SAMUEL
Some referred to printouts of cricket stats and scores, arguing over match details while the quieter lot furiously flipped through yearbooks and Mastermind, most quizzers’ preferred source of information. Renowned quizmaster Dyu D’Cunha took charge and after a tense written preliminary round, shortlisted the top six teams that would compete in the city final. It was only when the main round
of the quiz began that one realised how unique and crafty its conception was. Points were termed as ‘runs’ and the total that the teams accumulated from the preliminaries was carried forward to the main round, giving the brain-wracking that each team went through, a deserving credit. Dyu’s witty and humourous moderating kept everyone in splits and with each answer, the brainy audience kept winning Chargers
tees. Teams vied for six (tough) and four (easy) runs in each of the six rounds, all laid out ingeniously. Round 1 — The Bid — had the teams bidding for questions from 12 Deccan Chargers’ stars such as Andrew Symonds, Herschelle Gibbs and Rohit Sharma among others. In “The Toss”, teams had to choose from two answers (Heads or Tails) and tackle complex jumbled words in ‘Opening Spell’.
Their visual aptitude was put to test in ‘Free Hit’ where a team that didn’t know the answer could pass it to a team of their choice and with the latter’s correct free hit, both could earn runs. Round 5 or “Power Play” gave participants the option to face questions on the defensive back foot (2 runs), front foot (4 runs) or go for a massive six (6 runs). This was the cut-off round for teams as only the top two standing would advance to the final round. Sri Kumaran Children’s Home, Doddakalasandra and Presidency School, R.T. Nagar finished top two to face off in “Bowl Out”. With a 12-run lead, Kumaran’s duo of Pranav V. Chakravarthy and Bharath M.M. (142) hardly faced any threat and held off Presidency (122 runs) to emerge champions of the Bengaluru leg of the tournament. Alongwith Kumaran and Presidency, Florence Public School, R.T. Nagar (108 runs) and Sri Kumaran, Tata Silk Farm (118 runs) will battle it out in the national finals in Mumbai early next month. “It’s a great feeling, the win is yet to sink in. Some questions were challenging, but it just added to the excitement. This is our first big win and our first national tournament and Mumbai should be a good experience for us,” an ecstatic Pranav said. Co-sponsored by NDTV Imagine, The T20 challenge hits Hyderabad today and will be followed by Visakhapatnam, Delhi and Mumbai. Four top teams from each of these seven cities will be joined by two top two teams each from Chandigarh and Vijayawada for the 32-team national finals in Mumbai.