So You Think You Know Test Cricket?

Archie Mac | 12:00am GMT 23 January 2007

Published: 2005
Pages: 160
Author: Gifford, Clive
Publisher: Hodder Children
Rating: 2.5 stars

The only problem with tackling a cricket quiz book two years after the publishing date is the ephemeral nature of cricketing records.

The two ways to approach this problem are:

1. to answer the question based on current records, or
2. try to suspend time in your mind and supply the answer as it was at the time of publication.

I chose the latter option, which ultimately proved a little confusing since I was unable to remember exact dates. For instance on which date did Brian Lara claim the world Test record for the most runs scored?

This was a minor problem but it made me wonder when was the first cricket quiz book published, and how hard would it be to suspend ones knowledge of coming events.

The first cricket quiz book according to Padwick was The Sporting What Do You Know by W. Bell, which was published in 1937, but only contained 11 pages of cricketing questions.

The first truly cricket quiz book seem to be Cricket Quiz by Brian Langley, which was published in 1945 and features “over 500 questions and answers about the King of games”. Watch this space as I try and locate this little book.

Returning back to the quiz book at hand, Clive Gifford has come up with over 1,000 questions about the game, which is a statistician’s fantasy.

I must admit to be a little disappointed about a couple of things, firstly the cover is most misleading; when a book states ‘so you think you know Test cricket’ you would assume a quiz on Test cricket, but the author as included questions on Tests, ODI and even First Class Cricket.

The second disappointment was the format of the questions, with a standard 50 general cricket questions per individual quiz. This basically meant that your score only moved marginally from one quiz to the next, and the whole thing had a sameness, that was ultimately unfulfilling.

There was a ‘sticky wicket’ at the end of the book, which contained some real tough questions, and which I struggled on.

If you can find a copy of this little book you can challenge yourself, but also The Mac, here are my efforts.

Quiz 1=50 questions score 56%.
Quiz 2=50 questions score 62%.
Quiz 3=50 questions score 58%.
Quiz 4=50 questions score 74%.
Quiz 5=50 questions score 59%.
Quiz 6=50 questions score 58%.
Quiz 7=50 questions score 56%.
Quiz 8=50 questions score 54%.
Quiz 9=50 questions score 56%.
Quiz 10=50 questions score 74%.
Quiz 11=50 questions score 62%.
Quiz 12=50 questions score 47%.
Quiz 13=50 questions score 74%.
Quiz 14=50 questions score 60%.
Quiz 15=50 questions score 66%.
Quiz 16=50 questions score 73%.
Quiz 17=50 questions score 61%.
Quiz 18=50 questions score 58%.
Quiz 19=50 questions score 58%.
Quiz 20=50 questions score 48%

Total 60.70%.
Sticky Wicket=50 questions score 40%