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It was the final of the world-renowned cricket tournament - the Cinders (not to be mistaken for the Ashes).

The Owls were comfortably the favourites. They were unbeaten in the last 4 years, whereas the Snakes hadn't won in the last 3. It was perhaps the most obvious result in sporting history.

However, as the match started it was clear something wasn't right. Despite chasing a very low score, and facing some terrible bowling, the Owls were struggling to win. Down into the final over, and with merely 2 runs to win, the Owls unbelievably lost. The biggest shock in sporting history. No one could believe what they were witnessing.

The most confusing thing however, was the score sheet. The scorer that day was a member of the Owls coaching team, and was an established scorer, yet the score sheet was totally incorrect. The bowlers names were wrong, the overs didn't match, there were random boxes drawn and the totals were nonsense. People started getting a sense that something fishy was happening, but no one could work out what, or why the score sheet was so confusing.

Can you decipher the score sheet and explain what happened?

enter image description here

Note: No additional knowledge of cricket or cricket scoring is required. Everything needed is in the legend on the side.

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  • $\begingroup$ Hm, I think I'm on the last step but nothing seems to be working out. (Are you sure the third box in the bottom row is correct?) $\endgroup$
    – Deusovi ♦
    Commented Jul 20, 2021 at 18:37
  • $\begingroup$ @Deusovi yep, (rot13 lbh zvtug unir gb oebnqra lbhe frnepu gb genafyngr vg ubjrire (vg vf abg arrqrq gb qb gur erfg vs lbh unir rirelguvat ryfr gubhtu)) $\endgroup$
    – Beastly Gerbil
    Commented Jul 20, 2021 at 18:40

1 Answer 1

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Step 1:

The scores on the right, converted with A=1, B=2..., spell out NAME CLUE.

Step 2:

The names form a clue when the left-side names are shifted down by 1:
Bray Elle / Dom Inose / Sa'id Weys / Col. Erms
or "Braille dominoes, sideways columns".

Step 3:

Turn your head 90° to the left.
scoresheet, rotated with letters overlaid
The scores in each marked box are consecutive numbers. Read off the Braille formed by this in reverse to get XOR OTHERS.
(Side note: The period could also be interpreted as dis - in fact, it would have to be, without any space.)
(Another side note: Just turning the dominoes upside down doesn't work - they have to be read from right to left.)

Step 4:

Treat • as 0, and bitwise XOR the two unused cells in each row. Since we're reading off Braille again, this means that the "dots" are the places where the two have the same symbol.

identical positions highlighted in unused cells

And now we can see that there was a BRIBE!

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    $\begingroup$ rot13(V guvax gur K naq B ner cneg bs gur fnzr jbeq.) $\endgroup$
    – user39583
    Commented Jul 20, 2021 at 21:54
  • $\begingroup$ @user39583 Oh, duh. Thanks for pointing that out! $\endgroup$
    – Deusovi ♦
    Commented Jul 20, 2021 at 22:14
  • $\begingroup$ There we go :P One final note before I award a tick, I think you missed what I was trying to get at for step 3. The intention was that the thicker rectangles marked out dominoes where if you lay them in a row, 1-2, 2-3 etc from 1 to 6 you could then read a sentence in braille. (Also didn't know about the space rule for braille punctuation, thats my mistake). Other than that, all correct! $\endgroup$
    – Beastly Gerbil
    Commented Jul 21, 2021 at 0:35
  • $\begingroup$ @BeastlyGerbil If you laid them out like [1|2][2|3][3|4][4|5][5|6], they would be upside down. $\endgroup$
    – Deusovi ♦
    Commented Jul 21, 2021 at 5:49
  • $\begingroup$ That’s… a very good point and my mistake. I really need to start proof reading properly, apologies! Here’s the tick $\endgroup$
    – Beastly Gerbil
    Commented Jul 21, 2021 at 10:36

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