Jharkhand State Cricket Association comes up with bizarre questionnaire for applicants

The Jharkhand State Cricket Association (JSCA) came up with a bizarre questionnaire in their written exam to select members for the association.The question paper included certain unrelated questions some of which are,

“What was the name of Lord Rama’s only sister?”

“Which Indian goddess is the counterpart of Greek Athena and Roman Minerva?”

“Who said, ‘If anything is certain, it is that I myself am not a Marxist’?”

“Which Indian Governor General established and even opened the Indian School of Mines?”

A majority of 941 applicants appearing for this exam organised by the JSCA on Sunday could barely answer those strange questions and 40 other questions within the strict 45-minute deadline.

A poor performance was obvious, where 300 candidates out of the 941 applying scored a zero. The only silver lining for the candidates was that the question paper did not carry any negative marks for wrong answers and the association didn’t set a pass mark. Reports claimed that 200 candidates got around two-three correct answers while the highest mark achieved was 17.

As reported by the Times of India, the president of the JSCA, Amitabh Chaudhary said, "We will call for a managing committee meet soon and decide whom to include as the members of JSCA. We are happy to receive such a response and it’s the first time this kind of initiative has been taken by any state association."

The test was conducted by the JSCA to encourage more non-cricketers to become a part of the association, to follow the directives of the Lodha committee in a bid to improve the transparency in the functioning of the BCCI and its subsequent state units.

The syllabus for the exam included 20 questions on domestic and international cricket, another 10 questions 5 each on domestic and international sports excluding cricket, and the remaining on state affairs and general knowledge.

It probably was barely believable for the applicants when they saw questions on subjects such as mythology, politics, history and even Leftist philosophy.

According to the Indian Express,Rajesh Verma, the JSCA secretary, said, "the questions were not tough. If one reads the newspaper on a daily basis or is a passionate cricket follower then he could have answered those questions.”

Verma even showed his prowess answering the four challenged questions upfront and stated, "Shanta, Goddess Saraswati and Karl Marx. The Indian School of Mines was opened by the then British Viceroy Lord Irwin in 1926.”