The ultimate quiz from this week in sports history

Michael Bevan, perhaps the greatest ODI batsman in history, was born this week 50 years ago. Photograph: Hamish Blair/Getty Images

1. Forerunner of the modern AFL, the VFL hosted its first round of matches on 8 May 1897, but who took home the competition’s inaugural premiership?

   1. Melbourne

   2. Geelong

   3. Collingwood

   4. Essendon

2. Perhaps the greatest ODI batsman in history was born on 8 May 1970, but which of these statements about Michael Bevan is true?

   1. First Canberra-born cricketer to represent Australia

   2. First man to play 300 ODIs

   3. First man to retire with an ODI average above 60

   4. A man who took his nickname “The Finisher” to such extremes he was always the first to clear his plate during team meals

3. Wally Lewis claimed his final State of Origin man of the match award on 8 May 1991, but on how many occasions was the Emperor of Lang Park considered best afield in his 31 Origin appearances?

   1. 31

   2. 20

   3. 12

   4. 8

4. The tennis circuit should be in the middle of the European clay season right now, counting down to Roland Garros and Ash Barty’s defence of the Coupe Suzanne Lenglen. But can you remember who the Queenslander beat in last year’s French Open final?

   1. Simona Halep

   2. Naomi Osaka

   3. Markéta Vondroušová

   4. Amanda Anisimova

5. Mark Williams won his third world snooker title on 7 May 2018, 15 years after his second, but during his celebrations, how did he honour a bet he had made at the beginning of the tournament?

   1. By appearing at his post-win press conference nude

   2. By taking a midnight dip in the nearby River Don

   3. By reciting Hamlet’s soliloquy in the middle of one of England’s most important regional theatres

   4. By retiring

6. Melbourne Victory and Melbourne City have only met once in an A-League finals contest, and it happened on 8 May 2015 with Victory romping home 3-0. What was the official attendance that night?

   1. 60,873

   2. 50,873

   3. 40,873

   4. 30,873

7. Australian boxing great Lionel Rose died on 8 May 2011, but at what weight did he hold the lineal world title?

   1. Flyweight

   2. Bantamweight

   3. Featherweight

   4. Lightweight

8. Leicester City lifted the Premier League trophy on 7 May 2016, becoming the unlikeliest champions in the competition’s history. The presentation ceremony featured a spine-tingling rendition of Nessun Dorma from which tenor?

   1. Andrea Bocelli

   2. Placido Domingo

   3. Luciano Pavarotti

   4. Bryn Terfel

9. The Super Netball season was supposed to get underway last weekend with which side defending their premiership?

   1. NSW Swifts

   2. Sunshine Coast Lightning

   3. Melbourne Vixens

   4. Collingwood Magpies

10. Andrew McLeod made the first of his 340 AFL appearances for Adelaide on 5 May 1995, but who traded the dual Norm Smith medallist a few months earlier, without him ever pulling on that club’s guernsey?

    1. Brisbane

    2. Port Adelaide

    3. Fremantle

    4. West Coast

11. With just three seconds remaining in the deciding fifth game of the first round of the 1989 NBA playoffs Michael Jordan nailed “The Shot”. But who did the Chicago Bulls eliminate in such dramatic fashion on 7 May 31 years ago?

    1. Boston Celtics

    2. New York Knicks

    3. Philadelphia 76ers

    4. Cleveland Cavaliers

12. Australia began their campaign to secure a maiden ICC Women’s T20 World Cup on 6 May 2010 with a group match against England. Both teams finished 104 all out, and both ended the super over six for two. How was the result decided?

    1. Coin toss

    2. Fewest extras

    3. Most sixes

    4. Points shared

13. The eyes of the football world were trained on Milan on 6 May 1970 to witness which Dutch side become the first to lift the European Cup?

    1. Ajax

    2. Feyenoord

    3. PSV Eindhoven

    4. FC Twente

14. The magical four-minute barrier for the mile was broken by Roger Bannister on 6 May 1954 in Oxford, but whose record did he overhaul to set the new mark?

    1. John Landy

    2. Herb Elliott

    3. Peter Snell

    4. Gunder Hägg

15. Dan Christian was born on 4 May 1983. A successful all-rounder at first-class and 50-over level, Christian has made the T20 franchise circuit his own. How many professional teams (states, counties and franchises) has he represented during his career?

    1. 17

    2. 12

    3. 8

    4. 5

Solutions

1:D - Essendon won the first of their 16 VFL/AFL flags after finishing on top of a round robin ladder at the end of a finals series that did not include a grand final., 2:A - Remarkably, it wasn’t until Bevan hit the international scene in 1994 that the nation’s capital had its first cap. The well-travelled Bevan was born in the ACT, made his first-class debut for South Australia, then represented NSW and Tasmania with distinction. , 3:D - The King was crowned man of the match an Origin-record eight times, one more than Cameron Smith. , 4:C - Barty defeated the unseeded Czech Vondroušová, then just 19 years old, 6-1-6-3. , 5:A - The 43-year-old celebrated his first ranking title in seven years by loosening his bow-tie, unbuttoning his waistcoat, and slipping in to meet the press in his birthday suit., 6:B - 50,873 packed into Etihad Stadium to see Victory cruise into the grand final. It was the sixth largest crowd in the competition’s history and the biggest ever for a City match. , 7:B - Rose secured the WBA, WBC, The Ring, and lineal bantamweight titles in 1968 with victory over Masahiko Harada in Tokyo. , 8:A - Andrea Bocelli, of course, as Foxes legend Claudio Ranieri recalls. “On 7 May, Andrea came to perform for little Leicester City, champions of England. I stood next to him as he began to sing. And at one point, he grabbed my hand and leaned into me. “Oh!” he said. “It’s fantastic! This emotion … it’s fantastic!” And he was right. It was happiness. For me. For the players. For the people of Leicester.” All the feels. , 9:A - The Swifts have not been afforded the opportunity of going back-to-back after they thumped the Lightning in last season’s decider. , 10:C - McLeod should have been part of Fremantle’s inaugural AFL list but after being flown to WA to meet coaching staff the two parties never saw eye to eye and the Dockers traded their right to list the future Hall of Famer to the Crows in return for Chris Groom. Groom made seven starts before being delisted. , 11:D - It was the Cavs who had their hearts broken in such brutal fashion before the Bulls fell in the conference finals to the uncompromising Pistons. , 12:C - Similar to the men’s 50-over World Cup final last year (but without as much controversy) the winners were determined by a countback, in this case specifically sixes. Australia won that measure 1-0. , 13:B - Ajax would revolutionise football with their hat-trick of wins from 1971 but it was rivals Feyenoord who broke the duck for the Dutch with a 2-1 extra-time triumph over Celtic. , 14:D - Swedish runner Hägg set all sorts of records over all sorts of distances in the 1940s, including posting a time of 4:01.40 for the mile in Malmö in 1945, a mark that wasn’t officially bettered for almost a decade. , 15:A - A whopping 17 (seventeen) taking him from New South Wales to the Multan Sultans, via, well, everywhere.

Scores

1. 13 and above.

   Congratulations. Top of the class

2. 10 and above.

   You've been immersed in nostalgic re-runs, haven't you?

3. 7 and above.

   No disgrace in being average

4. 4 and above.

   Plenty of room for improvement

5. 0 and above.

   Perhaps use isolation to read up on some history?