A Ten Over Slog Quiz | Sports

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. A nice gentle start to the innings. Your batsman plays the first 4 balls back to the bowler, scoring no runs. An easy single through the covers (on the off side) off the fifth ball, and then another no scoring ball to finish off the over. How many runs in total has your team scored from the first over?

Answer: 1

A single is one run - the batsman "on strike" hits the ball to the outfield, and both batsmen complete a "run" - running from one wicket to the wicket at the other end, and both "making their ground" - running the bat, or part of their body - but it's almost always the bat - past the Batting, or the Popping crease - this is the long line that runs across the pitch, approximately a metre in front of the stumps.

2. The first ball of the second over is pulled by the batsman along the ground and over the leg side boundary. The next four balls all result in no runs being scored, before the batsman scramble a couple of runs off the last ball thanks to a misfield by the fielder on the Third Man (Off side, behind the wicket) boundary. So how many runs in total off this over?

Answer: 6

If the ball crosses the boundary having hit the infield, or rolled along it, then a four is scored. So the first ball scores four. The next four balls ad nothing to the total, and then the last ball goes for two runs to the infield - so a total of 6 runs off this over.

3. The third over of the match, and this ends up as a "Maiden" over - how many runs do you think were scored off this over in total?

Answer: 0

A "maiden" over is an over where no runs at all are scored from the bat off the six balls. It's important to note the phrase "from the bat", as it's possible for a bowler to bowl a maiden over whilst the team concedes certain types of extras - leg byes and byes generally. This is still known as a maiden over, despite the fact that the team have conceded runs.

The history of the term "Maiden" over is interesting. It would appear that the term first started as a cricketing term, before becoming more widely used as an expression meaning "to sweep a young lady off her feet" - certainly, there are no records of the latter use of the term pre-dating any cricketing references to the term. How it became a cricketing term is, I suspect, down to a pretty prosaic explanation - a lot more prosaic than the slightly "Romantic" ideal of charming a young lady to distraction!

4. The fourth over of the innings, and a single bye is scored from the first ball - and a four from the last ball. How many team runs in total from the 4th over?

Answer: 5

The "bye" is an extra - this usually occurs when a ball passes the batsman and the wicketkeeper (who stands behind the stumps the striking batsman is defending), and the two batsmen cross for a run. Sometimes this can be two or three byes run by the batsmen, and sometimes the ball will go all the way to the boundary, resulting in 4 byes being scored. "Byes" are not credited to the batsman, or against the bowlers - they are scored as team extras, and add to the team total.

5. OK, two singles off the first two balls of the 5th over. A four through extra cover of the third, and another four over long off from the 4th. No runs from the rest of the over - how many runs in total scored from this over?

Answer: 10

Two singles = 2 in total. A four through extra cover is a ball hit to the offside of the batsman, at roughly a 45 degree angle in front of him. The next ball was the same result - 4 more runs - but long off is just a little bit straighter than extra cover. So two ones and two fours is 10 in total.

6. At the start of the next over, the first ball is driven by the batsman through the covers, along the ground, and across the boundary. The stroke is repeated off the next ball. The third ball goes for a single, the fourth goes through fine leg for a four, and the last two balls were "dot balls" - how many have you scored from the over?

Answer: 13

If the ball crosses the boundary having hit the infield, or rolled along it, then a four is scored. There are three of these in the over, one single run, and two "dot balls" where no runs are scored - so a total of 13 off the over.

7. OK, it's the seventh over of the game, and your team scores the following from it- A single, a maximum, another single, two dot balls and a leg bye. How many runs has your team scored in total from the over?

Answer: 9

A single is one run - the batsman "on strike" hits the ball to the outfield, and both batsmen complete a "run" - running from one wicket to the wicket at the other end. A "maximum" is a six off the bat - the most a batsman can score from a single hit.

He does this by hitting the ball, without bouncing, across the boundary. If it bounces, he only gets four. Another single takes your total to 8 - then two "dot" balls. A "dot ball" is a term used to say that no runs were scored off that ball - so called because the scorer traditionally enters a "dot" into the scorebook to denote such a ball. Finally a leg bye is when the ball hits the batsman's leg (usually, though it can be any other part of his body), and runs are scored in the same way as if the ball had come from the bat - but the score is marked against the team, in the column called "extras". So a total of 9 scored by the team off this over.

8. In this over, a sudden collapse - the bowler takes a hat trick from the first three balls, then the new batsman sees out the remainder of the over without attempting any runs, and nor are any extras scored. So how many runs in total have your team scored from the 8th over?

Answer: 0

A "hat trick" in cricket is a bowler taking a wicket with three consecutive balls. No runs can be scored by the batsmen off a wicket taking ball by the bowler. Three balls defended at the end of the over mean that no runs are scored at all from this over.

In cricketing parlance, this is another "maiden" over to the bowler - but as he took three wickets in the over, it would be referred to as a "triple wicket maiden".

9. Only two overs to go in the innings now - you score 4 leg byes from the first ball after the ball hits the batsman's pads, and is deflected over the boundary rope. A "wide" is called off the next ball, adding another run to the total, then two more boundary fours and 3 singles are scored from the rest of the over - a good over for you, because your team added how many runs?

Answer: 16

Leg byes count towards the team total under the "extras" score. Two boundary 4's to the batsman and three singles add up to 15 - but you also need to add one more for the "wide", to give you your total of 16. A "wide" is when the ball is deemed by the umpire to be unreachable by the batsman from his normal stance.A run is added to the extras column, and the ball is bowled again.

10. The last over of the 10 over slog, and the batsman is really going for the big hits now - in fact, he manages to repeat a feat first accomplished by Sir Gary Sobers for Nottinghamshire in 1968, repeated by Indian Ravi Shastri in 1985, then the feat was seen twice more in 2007. How many runs from the final over?

Answer: 36

You can see an article on Glamorgan's website celebrating the 40th anniversary of Sir Gary Sobers' feat here;

http://www.glamorgancricket.com/news_view.php?news_id=1430

There are also plenty of videos of the two instances of the feat in 2007 - South African Herschelle Gibbs in the World Cup, and India's Yuvraj Singh in the Twenty20 World Cup. Quite a feat - and I hope you enjoyed slogging the ball all around the ground in this quiz as well!

Source: Author huw27

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor Dalgleish before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

A Ten Over Slog Trivia Quiz

Follow this quiz through, and you'll probably learn a fair bit about how runs are scored at cricket. Plenty of clues and repeating themes so everyone can score a maximum here!

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