Vizag Steel clinch BBU tie
Bhubaneshwar, Sep 05, 2008: A packed banquet hall welcomed the quizmaster, Pickbrain, on stage at Bhubaneshwar as he started proceedings with an apology to those who had to stand on the aisles as the number of teams outnumbered the seating capacity. In some ways it reflected on the growing popularity of quizzing in Orissa.
The fairly tough prelim followed for the 58 teams that took part and the six finalists were:
Bharti Artel – Sumeet Nandal & Manav Sahni
XIMB – Prof.MN Tripathi & Prof.Rajeev Roy
Satyam Computers – Jagadish Prasad Sahu & Priyambad Pattanayak
Vizag Steel – Sabyasachi Pani & Santanu Dey
Bhilai Steel – Chandrashekar & Ramani
Indian Oil Corporation – Nihar Ranjan Das & Ashis Kumar Tripathy
As the quiz moved through the early rounds, all teams seemed evenly poised answering questions that came to them. In the buzzer rounds and the lateral thinking round that followed, Satyam, Vizag Steel and Bhilai Steel made progress with Bhilai Steel, the defending champions, moving ahead of the rest.
In the final question of the quiz with a lead of 15 points the duo from Bhilai Steel could have hit the buzzer and taken a negative (of minus 10) but they played the game with great spirit and fairness to allow Vizag Steel to push the buzzer and level the score at 55 a piece. It prompted Pickbrain to remark, “As Bhilai steel have done a Courtney Walsh here they stand tall for their fairplay”. In the tie breaker that followed Vizag Steel won the quiz.
A truly memorable evening of quizzing with loads of audience prizes especially for those who had to stand and a remarkable display of sportsmanship.