IPL Special – Clue Writing Contest – Results

How much do the IPL and cryptic crossword fans love Virat? Let me count the ways..

We now have a winner! It was a tight contest and all the shortlisted clues managed to get points from voters.

Without further ado, here are the clues that made it to the Podium..

With a total of 54 points from 20 voters, in third place is

Leading batsman playing at Vikhroli (5,5) by Sreeni (Avatar)

The clue was simple and elegant and identified a neat anagram “at Vikhroli” combined together with “playing” as anagrind. The second clue which used the same fodder managed to pick up only 28 points though both were equally good.

With 64 points from 21 voters, in second place was

Leading run-getter, playing trivial hook gets duck out (5,5) by Arshad Nadamal.

Must say that this was the closest to my own clue “Launch out, leaving trivial hook shot for captain (5,5)” before I had the idea of the CWC:). Its always amazing how cryptic minds do think alike though there are still differences in the treatment of the clue.

The other clue with “trivial” and “shot”, “Leading batsman, starting to hit very well, sent back through trivial shot (5,5)” managed to pick up 47 points and narrowly missed a podium finish.

With a whopping 99 points (just short of a century), from 25 voters was the clue that was also my favorite..

Legendary cricketer Rohit Sharma’s last six left Kumble’s head spinning (5,5) by Spiffytrix.

Welcome back Spiffytrix and hope we can see more clues and (if we get lucky), even a grid from you soon:). Congrats on the win and this clue will be featured in our IPL Special grid.

The other clues which made it to the Shortlist (numbers as per the original voting form)

2  Legendary batsman, unlikely rival to Hick, caught out – By Thomas W Hunter

3  Loosely ‘King’, hard to rival, India’s top player (5,5) – By Bhalchandra Pasupathy

4  Leading victorious Indians, rakish, aggressive, tenacious..King of hearts, legendary icon! (5,5) – By Mona Sogal

6  Leading sportsman trained at Vikhroli (5,5) – By Ashit Hegde

7  Look! Balls fly off! Oh, trivia bandied about top Royal Challenger (5,5) – By Chatur Vasi

8  Lara, snubbed, hit off six in the beginning – enthralling knockout! He’s a great batsman (5,5) – By Neelima Rai

9  Leading Indian Cricketer’s trivia – lakh go crazy after dismissing allrounder opener for duck(5,5) – By Gayathri Viswanath

11  Leading batsman, starting to hit very well, sent back through trivial shot (5,5) – By Ramki Krishnan

Thanks to all of you who participated. Here are some comments from those who had voted..

1. “Would have given full marks to 10 but Six(VI) seemed indirect without a position indicator.
   Expected better clues overall”

2. This was a fun activity to do..Thank you for posting all the clues along with the annos and remarks..a good learning exercise..

3. “Anagram:ROHITALVIK Suitably deceptive”

4. Lovely ( starting in L 😀 ) set of clues 🙂

5. A good crop of clues to vote for. Contest conducted very well. Appreciate the SL as otherwise we would have had many to wade through many indifferent clues. The search box is a nice idea for anyone to get a clue with just a remembered term. The drop-down helps us to place the chosen clue effortlessly. Display of all clues helps us to know how so many minds worked and tackled the task on hand – two using the same anag fodder that you can’t get in any anagram finder but must come out of one’s mind. o

6. The anagrams with Vikhroli were quite good, but couldn’t quite find an association between that and Virat, else would have been rated higher. ‘Duck out’ as an expression in one of the clues sounded a bit too colloquial. The Rohit/Kumble clue was a good one, neat misdirection, will the audience get it? My top choice though

7. “Clear top three for me. Few thoughts.
   I. Leading batsman, starting to hit very well, sent back through trivial shot (5,5) – Really loved the way ‘very well = OK’ along with the reversal and container element was handled. Runaway winner in my book.
   II. Leading run-getter, playing trivial hook gets duck out – Good solid clue but lacking the “”Wow factor”” of the winner.
   III. Loosely ‘King’, hard to rival, India’s top player (5,5) – Technically not an &lit but a semi-&lit since ‘player’ does not contribute to wordplay. Nevertheless great effort. I rated it third since the surface reading is not as smooth as the first two.”

8. Went for less convoluted sentences (in plain reading), ranking from tricky to obvious

9. Very nice clues.

10. Very challenging for grading. All clues are really impressive. please review my grading.

11. Good batting ,!

12. Nice cluing from all. Had to think before posting the ranking.

13. “Found all the 11 very good and tough to eliminate 6 of them. Even tougher was ranking 1 to 5.
    Not sure if I have done justice. One tends to look more from cricketing point of view than clue writing!
    Looking forward to the Special. Cheers!”

14. Loved 10