Question

Given below is a newspaper headline. Choose the option which explains the headline:
Rain Disrupts Last Day Play Between India-Australia

• A. India-Australia play disrupted by rain.
• B. The rain disrupted the last day's play between India and Australia.
• C. The Australia and India last day's play disrupted by rain.
• D. None of the above.

Answer 1

Answer: (B)

The rain disrupted the last day's play between India and Australia.

In newspaper headlines, the auxiliary verbs (helping verbs) are generally omitted, because headlines are designed to be short, in order to attract attention. Hence the English rules used will be slightly different than the normal spoken language.
In the given newspaper headline, the tense has been changed from simple past tense to simple present 'disrupts'.
Option B explains the headline by using the past tense form of the verb, 'disrupted'. Hence B is the correct option.
Option A: The explanation has left out a specific detail 'last day'. This changes the meaning of the headline. Hence option A is incorrect.
Option C is incorrect because it does not give the clear meaning of the headline. The hyphen sign '-' means 'between' and not 'and': The Australia and India last day's play.
Option D is incorrect because the answer lies in B.