Stats – 60 solvers completed and submitted the grid, of which 44 managed to complete the grid with zero errors and 30 went on to get the maximum possible score of 125. We had 4 new solvers and a couple of old timers coming back to solve this one – Vikram Chandrashekar, Ramesh Jagannathan, Subramaniam G., Manas Desai, PB Padmanabhan and Amartya Saha – Welcome to 1ACross
Here’s the Puzzle:
Click here for the PDF Version – IPL20
Bonus Questions
- What message in the Puzzle was connected to the theme (3,3,4,2,3,1,1,1,5,1,7)
- Name of 5 players in the grid lights OTHER than the captains of the teams playing in 2020
Click Here for the Annotations:
Across:
1 MINDSOH*, 5 K(L)R H(A)UL(-l), 10 ROHIT +A(sharma’s last)+ VI(6)+L(left)+K(Kumble’s head), 11 Acrostic – I Y E R, 12 W(o)R(d)Y, 14 DD, 17 MAY<<, 18 (EMIR)ATE, 19 T, 27 CH(I)A, 28 STE(VE) SMITH*, 29 D (WARN) ER<, 30 K( ART HI) K.
Down: 2 DD, 3 HEA(-r)T, 4 NI(K)E<, 6 L AIR, 8 Hidden word, 9 DD, 13 ROH(I)T<, 14 G (AY) LE<<, 15 D(I)M, 16 DD, 20 SH(-o+A)W, 21 NA(I)R<<, 22 IS LE, 23 Tail Acrostic, 24 BET A, 25 (-v)OMIT, 26 (s)E(n)T(u)I.
Answers to the Bonus Questions:
1: All the best to the IPL teams n players – (Clue Acrostic formed with the first letters of each of the clues)
2: Karun Nair, Chris Gayle, Prithvi Shaw, KM Asif, Dwayne Bravo
Here’s the Score card (sorted by total and then alphabetically)
Congrats to the 30 solvers who maxed the score and to every one who participated. Very well tried.
One amongst the “all correct” entries was picked by lucky draw to receive an autographed copy of Mr. W.V.Raman’s book “The Winning Sixer”
The Lucky winner was picked by a web based tool and it is…
Congrats Narayan. We will get in touch with you for further details about this prize.) Thanks to “W.V.Raman” for the idea and for sponsoring the prize.
Grid Rating: The puzzle got an excellent score of 8.5. It got 17 perfect 10s – i.e 28% of those who submitted thought it was perfect. The minimum score was 5.
Top 3 Clues: The most favorite clues were for “VIRAT KOHLI” with 23 votes , “MS DHONI” with 20 votes and “ASIF” with 11 votes. Kudos to Spiffytrix whose clue for this special grid won appreciation from so many of our solvers.
Hope you all enjoyed this fun puzzle. Thanks to all our solvers for your support and feedback.
Comments on the Puzzle
1. Timely and fingers crossed for the book 🙂
2. What a puzzle for IPL . Loved it 🙂
3. great start to much awaited ipl 2020
4. Bravo Sowmya
5. Interesting
6. Enjoy the IPL
7. Nice puzzle. Very innovative use of colours
8. Awesome Puzzle!
9. OK
10. Easy by 1Across standards. But very enjoyable.
11. Fun to solve
12. fun puzzle
13. Innovative! Amazing clues.
14. thoroughly enjoyed, very entertaining
15. Nice grid
16. COULD HAVE BEEN TOUGHER
17. Excellent!
18. Fairly easy and interesting
19. Very nicely done. And fitting all 8 team captains!
20. All Captains there! Message in the clues … amazing!
21. Easy entertaining puzzle. Nice and topical.
22. Fun grid, but i wish the bonus questions were on the same page …
23. BOWLED
24. Fun Grid. Wonder how the clue set by Spiffytrix fall in line to contribute to the message in the puzzle
25. GOOD PUZZLE…
26. a nice fun puzzle
27. Great grid
28. fun and entertaining but the cant answer the above questions without going back to the puzzle. maybe missed the instructions so didnt pay attention
29. Enjoyed it. In my opinion all solution words should have been about cricket.
30. The bonus questions should have been on the same page plus it would have helped to see all the clues if its an acrostic
31. Gentle puzzle. Nice trick on the question.
32. Excellent and interesting puzzle to mark a special occasion.
33. Fun ,wish there was more
34. Super fun and innovative grid! Clues were on the easier side but were enjoyable nevertheless. The theme was incorporated really well.
35. Excellent themed puzzle and excellent embedded message
36. Enjoyed it
37. This was a completeT20 crossword – full of fun, didn’t take much time and thrilling to anno the solutions
38. Interesting grid!
39. CAUGHT BEHIND THE GRID !
40. Lots of fun
41. To accommodate all the eight captains neatly in the grid is a great achievement
42. Fun puzzle – very timely too!
43. Easy puzzle, once you look up Google.
44. ENJOYED SOLVING THE INNOVATIVE, THEMATIC PUZZLE
45. I know little of cricket. Need I say ant more?
46. 9 (didn’t get saved, typed answers thrice)
47. Great job done for the IPL Theme
48. Thank you! It was fun🎊🎊
49. excellent
50. The heavy constraints on the grid and the clues ended up making the puzzle a bit unsatisfying for me, unfortunately.
51. Nice themed puzzle
52. Enjoyable grid
53. Nice – couldn’t get one though
54. Good entertainment
55. Invaluable aid from team lists online. I would have been lost otherwise.
56. Nice grid composition!
57. I don’t know much about the IPL but it was fun to learn. Sowmya has outdone herself on the theme with the grid shape and colors, all 8 captains, at least 5 more players, other cricket words AND the acrostic message. Clues were creative and fair as always.
58. Initially, I thought all the answers would be related to cricket. Hence, took time in figuring out. I am a novice to THC and just started learning cryptic crosswords, so it was an interesting learning experience.
59. Seasonal delight
60. It was my first time solving a cryptic crossword whole heartedly. Although I have been hooked to quick crosswords, cryptic crosswords always threw me off, maybe my limited knowledge of tricks and other off beat knowledge of history ,pop etc. I did enjoy this very much, maybe the topic drew me close to it. And whatever I managed to solve did give me immense enjoy. Hoping this to be a start in path of developing a new hobby.