I had a different topic for this week’s quiz but the questions didn’t pan out. And so, this quiz is on second choices.

Stand-in success

1. There have been players who have done well in the FIFA World Cup after starting on the substitutes’ bench. But there has been only one case where a player who was a second choice for the opening match ended up with the Golden Ball award. Give his name, and the World Cup in question.

2. Which ’90s film was originally called Black Mask, after the director’s favourite comic of the ’20s?

3. This novel has sold more than eight million copies since its release in 1943. It probably wouldn’t have been as big a hit had it been published with its original title, Second-Hand Lives. Give the new title and the author.

4. In the 1980 NBA finals, the dominant centre of the Los Angeles Lakers, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had a severely sprained ankle and was unfit for the sixth and deciding game. Who took his place, and led the Lakers to an improbable victory over the Philadelphia 76ers?

5. The first Indian team to play a Test match was captained by the great CK Nayudu. However, Nayudu was a last-minute replacement. Who was the original captain?

6. Eric Stoltz was the hero of a popular ’80s film, and almost half the film had been shot when the director reluctantly admitted that his leading man was not working, and started shooting with a new hero. Who was the new star, and which film was it?

7. Which established star was the first choice of filmmaker Vidhu Vinod Chopra for the role of Lalita in Parineeta before director Pradeep Sarkar convinced him to cast Vidya Balan?

8. In 1949, who reluctantly turned down a fairly lucrative offer to play baseball for the New York Giants and turned to his second love, politics? The rest, they say, is history.

9. He went to Paris to study law in 1887 and returned to start work as a law firm clerk. An emergency appendicitis operation forced him to bed and his mother brought him some paints to pass the time. He never went back to his law firm. Name the artist.

10. The Mexican Wave, one of sport’s enduring traditions, almost never came to be. Mexico had hosted a World Cup final in 1970, and had no chance of getting another tournament just 16 years later. But when the South American country to which it had been assigned withdrew, Mexico stepped in. To which country was the 1986 World Cup originally awarded?

Answers

1. Salvatore Salvatore Schillaci; Italia ’90

2. Pulp Fiction

3. Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. It was made into a film starring Gary Cooper in 1949

4. Magic Johnson, who normally played in the point guard position

5. The Maharaja of Porbandar. He scored two runs in the four tour matches he played

6. Michael J Fox as Marty McFly in the film Back to the Future

7. Aishwarya Rai

8. Fidel Castro — apparently the Giants were very surprised that he refused the offer, which included a $5,000 signing bonus

9. Henri Matisse

10. Colombia. The country was going through a financial crunch

Joy Bhattacharjya is a quizmaster and Project Director, FIFA U-17 World Cup

Follow Joy on Twitter @joybhattacharj

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