SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 17 September 2024, Shift 2 · General Awareness · Question 14 of 100

Text as printed on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; answer per SSC's tentative key as marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 6 September 2026.

Where this paper and its answers come from

SSC does not publish CGL question papers or a public answer key. The questions and options here are reproduced as printed on a candidate's own response sheet for this shift — the Commission's text, unchanged. Each answer is SSC's tentative key as marked on that sheet; SSC allowed challenges to it and never publishes a final key. The solutions are written by UnlockIAS.

Follow On is related to which of the following cricket formats?

(a)Only Test Matches
(b)Both test and One-day matches
(c)Only One Day matches
(d)Only T20 matches

Answer

Why

Correct — A. The follow-on only exists in a match where each side bats twice.

Test cricket is a two-innings-per-side format, so a captain whose team has built a large first-innings lead may ask the other side to bat again at once instead of taking his own second innings. That option is the follow-on, and among the formats listed only Test matches allow it — option (a).

One-day and T20 games give each side one innings, so there is no second innings to bring forward.

Why the others are wrong

(b)
Both test and One-day matches — A one-day match gives each side a single innings, so there is nothing for a captain to defer. Adding ODIs breaks the two-innings condition the follow-on depends on.
(c)
Only One Day matches — This is the answer inverted. One-day cricket has one innings a side, which is exactly the condition the follow-on cannot do without.
(d)
Only T20 matches — T20 is also a single-innings format, twenty overs a side, so no follow-on can arise in it.

Concept

The follow-on belongs to the multi-innings game and is set out in Law 14 of the Laws of Cricket.

Its trigger is a first-innings lead. In a match scheduled for five days or more, the side batting first must lead by at least 200 runs before its captain may ask the opposition to follow on. Shorter first-class fixtures use smaller margins.

Enforcing it is a choice, never automatic. A captain may decline and bat again to rest bowlers or to build a target.

SSC is testing format recognition, not the fine print of the Law. You only need to know that Tests give each side two innings while the limited-overs formats give one.

Key facts

The follow-on can arise only in a match of more than one innings per side, which in international cricket means Test matches.
In a Test scheduled for five days or more, the required first-innings lead is 200 runs.
Enforcing the follow-on is the fielding captain's decision, not automatic.
ODI and T20 internationals are single-innings formats, so the follow-on cannot apply.

Study next

Innings structure of Test, ODI and T20 cricketLaw 14 of the Laws of Cricket and the lead required by match lengthDeclaration and how it differs from the follow-on

Common traps

Assuming the follow-on is compulsory once the 200-run lead exists. The captain decides.
Reading 'Test' loosely as 'any long match' and adding ODIs, which are still one innings a side.

Cricket vocabulary comes as one-line recall rather than as rules. The wicketkeeper item at 10 Sep 2024, 12:30, GA Q.5 and the BCCI head-office item at 9 Sep 2024, 09:00, GA Q.17 are the same shape.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.