Wandering Around the Bullring Trivia Quiz

Answer: Kruger's Park

Paul Kruger, who was President of the Transvaal from 1883 to 1900, was one of the main leaders of the Boers in their fight against the British in the Boer Wars, leaving the country in 1900 following the British victory. He was a controversial figure, worthy of a quiz of his own, but only figures here because he agreed that the then-newly established town of Johannesburg needed a sports facility, and granted an area that was called Kruger's Park. The stadium started using that name, but was then renamed Wanderers, the name of the cricket club that was its predominant user. This name was meant to suggest the significance of the immigrants to the area during the gold rush.

The stadium, like many others, currently uses a sponsor's name at the start of its name. Because sponsors change regularly, the current sponsor will not have their name included for this quiz - it may well be incorrect by the time you are playing it.

Answer: Victor Kent, the club chairman

As Johannesburg grew, so did the railway traffic, and the station grabbed bits and pieces of the Wanderers' land as expansion was needed. In 1936, the club bought a parcel of land in Ilovo where they originally established a golf course called Kent Park. The stadium was later built adjacent to the golf course. Stadiums are often given names designating each end in reference to external features, and the two ends of the Wanderers are called the Golf Course End and the Corlett Drive End. When the Old Wanderers Stadium had to go, the club had a replacement ready. It was built during the 1940s, and originally called Kent Park Stadium, before the team moved across to make it their home ground.

During construction of the New Wanderers stadium, cricket matches were played in Ellis Park, which had been built in the 1920s to be the home for rugby and association football (soccer). A cricket pitch was laid in the centre in 1947, and the ground was shared by all three sports for nearly ten years. (The image for this question was actually the Old Wanderers Stadium, to give a sense of the appearance of the early grounds.)

Answer: England won by 131 runs

The match was held on December 24 - 29 (including a rest day in the 25th), with England winning the toss and choosing to bat first. They scored 268 runs in 118.5 overs. (The maths teacher in me hates to use a decimal point here, since the number that follows it is out of 8 instead of 10, but this is the cricket convention.) Peter Richardson's 117 was the highest score for the team. South Africa then managed 215 runs in 89.1 overs, with nobody getting a 50, let alone a century. Batting conditions seem to have been deteriorating, as the English second innings only managed 150 runs in 66.6 overs, again with no half centuries. Facing a target of 204 runs to win in their second innings, South Africa only managed 72 runs in 33.4 overs. Trevor Bailey took 5 wickets for 20 runs in 15.4 overs.

England won the second test in the series (played in Cape Town), and the Durban test was a draw. The fourth test was again played in the Wanderers Stadium, and the fifth test on Port Elizabeth. Both of these were victories to South Africa, so the series ended up drawn.

While most cricket matches result either in victory for one side or as a draw because they ran out of time (and the trailing team was still batting at the end of play), there have actually been a couple of tied test matches, in which both teams ended up on exactly the same score, and all players were out. The first of these was a 1960 match between Australia and the West Indies.

Answer: 24 years

Their next match was played in December of 1993, a drawn test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground that was the start of a three-test series. This series was followed by a three-match series in South Africa, which started with a test in Johannesburg in March of 1994. Countries usually play each other at least once every couple of years, but in 1970 the ICC (cricket's governing body) banned South Africa from playing international cricket due to its policy of apartheid.

This policy meant not only that they fielded teams of exclusively white players, they also only competed against a limited number of countries (Australia, England and New Zealand) that were considered "white".

A number of great players never had the chance to show the world what they could do - the first name most cricket fans mention being Graeme Pollock.

Some players moved overseas in order to compete - Tony Greig moved to, and eventually captained, England, while Kepler Wessels moved to Australia. When the ban was lifted in 1991, Wessels came out of retirement to provide some international experience for the young team competing in the 1992 World Cup (which would see Wessels becoming the first player to represent two different countries in One Day International matches).

Answer: Michael Atherton

Michael Atherton is the only English player listed as an option - the others were in the South African side for this match. His career-high 185 runs off 492 balls was the highest score at that time to be scored in the Wanderers Stadium. It can be seen in the image for the question (which shows the number of runs scored in each test match innings through his career) as the highest line, in 1996.

He remained not out, along with keeper Jack Russell (don't blame his parents, they called him Robert Charles) on 29, a score accumulated during an innings of over four and a half hours.

The two were declared joint Men of the Match, Atherton for his batting display and Russell not only for being there with him at the end, but also for having taken 11 wickets as keeper during the match, which was a Test record. England had scored 332 runs in their first innings, and England only 200. South Africa declared their second innings closed at 9 for 346 (or 346 for 9, if you come from the part of the world where the number of runs is listed before the number of wickets), setting England a target of 478 runs to score in order to win.

They held out to finish with 5 for 351.

Answer: Australia

The World Cup involves 50-over-a-side matches usually called ODIs, short for One Day Internationals. The competition started in 1975, when West Indies beat Australia in the final, held at Lord's (London), and is played every four years. Australia won their first title in 1987, then won three times in a row in 1999, 2003 and 2007.

In the 2003 final, their captain, Ricky Ponting, scored 140 not out off 121 balls, leading his team to a total of 359 runs, with only 2 wickets lost, in their 50 overs. They then bowled India out for 234 in the 40th over of their innings, with Glenn McGrath taking 3 wickets (including catching Sachin Tendulkar off his own bowling in the first over). Ponting was named Man of the Match, and Tendulkar Player of the Series.

Answer: A fire

The fire apparently started in the kitchen of the Chariot's Bar around 6:30pm, and burned for several hours. The insurance company successfully appealed to have the municipality bear some of the costs of reconstruction, due to the unacceptable response from emergency services.

When fire fighters first arrived, they dismissed the fire as trivial, and had to be called back. Eventually seven teams attended the blaze. Over two-thirds of the clubhouse was destroyed, including the clock tower, which spectacularly collapsed in a flaming heap.

The records and trophies were virtually completely destroyed, along with irreplaceable memorabilia. There was a one-day cricket match underway at the time between South Africa A and New Zealand A; play continued even though the flames were visible from the field, but spectators were evacuated as a safety precaution.

Answer: South Africa won, scoring 438 with one ball left

This match was the first in which any ODI team had scored over 400 runs, the previous record of 398 having been set by Sri Lanka, against Kenya, in 1996. Australian fans were jubilant, and expected to win this deciding fifth match in the series, with each team having already won two matches.

The South Africans came out swinging - Jaques Kallis is said to have urged his teammates to consider that the pitch was good for 450 runs, so really Australia had fallen short of what they should have scored. Runs flowed, wickets fell, and South Africa needed 7 runs from the remaining 6 balls. Five runs were scored before a wicket fell, and the score was 9 for 433 when the Makhaya Ntini arrived at the crease with three balls remaining.

He scored a single, then Mark Boucher slammed a four, and it was all over.

These high score records have since been passed, as is their wont, but this game is still remembered as one of the best ODIs ever.

Answer: 236

South African captain Faf du Plessis had scored 119 off 71 balls for South Africa - and a century in a 20-over match is quite rare - and would have expected his team was set to win. Chris Gayle, however, had another idea, and hit 90 runs off 41 balls to set up his team's drive. Marlon Samuels contributed a rapid 60, and Darren Sammy hit a six off the second ball of the final over to deliver victory to the West Indies, with a then-record score for an international T20 match.

Answer: Most wickets taken in an ODI (record equalled with 10)

Since Abraham Benjamin de Villiers, better known as AB, was a batter, not a bowler, his record-setting work was done with the bat, although he also threw in a bit of handy fielding. In cricket, especially in the shorter forms of the game, the speed at which scores are made is measured by the number of balls faced, since actual clock time depends on other factors such as whether you are facing the bowler, or spending the over standing at the other end waiting to run when your partner hits the ball.

The previous record for scoring 50 runs (a half-century) was 17 balls, made by Sanath Jayasuriya in 1996. De Villiers broke Corey Anderson's 2014 record of needing 31 balls to score 100 runs (a century), and equalled Rohit Sharma's record for most sixes in an ODI innings.