World Cups with and before Virat Kohli

Hindustan Times

12-05-2025

Those of us who have lived through both of India's ODI World Cup victories will remember the joy of younger cricket fans who hadn't been born yet in 1983 but were old enough to celebrate the victory in 2011. Some of us bragged to our younger colleagues that we had watched both triumphs live, even though that only meant television for most of us.
But there are others who lived through both victories and showed no reaction, because sport does not enthuse them the way it enthuses others. This week's puzzle includes one such bore.
Coincidentally, after I created the puzzle, the last remaining active member of the 2011 team has announced his retirement from Test cricket. Virat Kohli remains available for ODI selection, of course, but his announcement somehow makes the following puzzle seem topical.
#Puzzle 142.1
We go back a few years into the recent past, when a neighbourhood in Mumbai is celebrating India's World Cup victory at the Wankhede Stadium. A young pair of twins have just returned from watching the match and are chattering away about how the match might have been won earlier if Batter X hadn't lost his wicket playing that rash shot, or if Batter Y had played a different shot on a certain delivery that would have got him a boundary instead of a single.
The noise upsets their grumpy old neighbour, who has little interest in cricket and has resented the student twins ever since they moved in next door from London, where their parents are working. 'What is there fuss so much over a cricket match? India won another World Cup 28 years ago when I was close to your age, and my generation never made such a noise,' he yells at the two students.
'Hey uncle, we have just watched the match on the ground. You probably watched both matches on TV, which may explain your lack of enthusiasm,' the youngsters shoot back.
'My generation doesn't waste time watching cricket,' Grumpy says.
'Who are you kidding?' the brother says. 'Our grandmother was at Lord's during the previous victory in 1983, and celebrated just like we are today. Coincidentally, India won that World Cup on our grandmother's birthday, and it's our birthday today when India have won it again. Granny made it a point to celebrate each birthday simultaneously with the anniversary of the Lord's victory, and so shall we."
'How old is your grandmother now?'
'Sadly, she did not have a very long life and died on her birthday many years ago. This was less than three months before we were born, so we never met her. Coincidentally, her age at death was exactly 1/38 of the year of her birth,' the sister replies.
#Puzzle 142.2
This is an old puzzle and it is highly likely that many Problematics readers have come across it before. Nevertheless, it is such a classic that it had to appear in this column sooner or later. A hot tap fills a bathtub in 5 minutes, and a cold tap fills it in 4 minutes. This is when each tap is turned on singly. If you turn off both taps and pull out the plug, a full bath empties in 10 minutes.
One day, a user finds that the bath is taking unusually long to fill even though both taps are on. The poor fellow has not realised that he has forgotten to plug the bottom, which is draining out part of the water coming in.
Kabir,
The practical answer to the magician's card trick is quite straightforward; the magician observed the bottom-most card after the deck was shuffled. It is unlikely he could have seen any other card.
The mathematically derived answer is also the bottom-most card. After dealing the first 12 cards, 40 remain in the pile. When the 8 cards are stacked at the bottom, then the original bottom card is #40 out of 48. Now, irrespective of what cards are face up, since we are topping up till 10, the sum of (the four face-up values) and (the number of top-up cards) will always be equal to 40. So if X number of cards dealt out on top of face-up cards, then the number of cards remaining in the deck would be (48 – X) with the original bottom card at position (40 – X) which is the sum of the pip values of the face-up cards.
— Abhinav Mittal, Singapore
#Puzzle 141.2
Hi Kabir,
In the mathematical trick, the sum of the first two numbers is always 2024, and the same is the sum of the next two numbers. This means that the sum of the first four numbers is 2024 + 2024 = 4048. Therefore, the sum of all the 5 numbers = 4048 + the number of people in the room. In this case, since the sum is 4061, the number of people in the room = 4061 –4048 = 13.
— Professor Anshul Kumar, Delhi
Solved both puzzles: Abhinav Mittal (Singapore), Professor Anshul Kumar (Delhi), Kanwarjit Singh (Chief Commissioner of Income-tax, retired), Anil Khanna (Ghaziabad), Yadvendra Somra (Sonipat), Dr Sunita Gupta (Delhi), Shishir Gupta (Indore), Ajay Ashok (Delhi)
Solved #Puzzle 141.2: Vinod Mahajan (Delhi), Y K Munjal (Delhi)