Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cricket/Archive 21

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Tom Wills

Can someone please take a look at the comments at Talk:Tom Wills Tintin (talk) 10:30, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Sehwag and Tendulkar Pics

User:Rait claims to have created these pics on the page. Is it OK to take people's logo and presumedly someone's copyrighted photo and stick them together to make a new image? If indeed he did create them?Blnguyen | rant-line 08:35, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

No, derivative works retain the copyright of the original, so these are obvious copyvios.
I've had trouble with this user before. He previously uploaded images which he falsely claimed the copyright owner had released all rights to.
Stephen Turner (Talk) 09:22, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
[edit conflict] The images in question have been removed from the articles & have been tagged as unsourced. Also this [1] means that the images can probably be deleted as {{db-author}}. Still I've left Rait a note requesting him to tag the images himself. Thanks --Srikeit (Talk | Review me!) 09:27, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

WP:CRIQ

There is a bit of a hiatus on the Quiz - neither the person who gave the right answer to the last question (Dingbatdan) nor the person who set the question (Deville) is around to set a new question. The previous setter was QazPlm, if he is around.

Anyway, this is by way of a gentle reminder to other editors that the Quiz exists :)-- ALoan (Talk) 10:14, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced new article?

I just came across the article 15-104, which appears to be a cricket article with a nonsense title. I'm at a loss as to what to do with it, can someone take a look? Oldelpaso 10:53, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Title clearly refers to Hedley Verity's astonishing figures. I suggest moving the nice scorecards to Verity's article and deleting the 15-104 entry. --Dweller 10:56, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
The scorecards should be on Wikisource if anywhere -- although to be honest I think duplicating Cricinfo's archive of scorecards is a bit pointless. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 11:46, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

List of cricketers moved here

Hi folks, per this AfD, I moved the list to Wikipedia:WikiProject Cricket/List of cricketers. --Deathphoenix ʕ 21:47, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Version 1.0

I just came across this today: Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team/Assessment. It's a tool that the Version 1 Editorial Team uses to assess the quality and importance of certain pages, and it appears that quite a few Wikiprojects are using it to do individual assessments on pages that relate to their topics. Would it be useful if we started to do something like this on the Cricket Wikiproject? --mdmanser 08:58, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes it would be. Since we've populated all the bios (are all grounds covered?), I think we should start to get more articles featured. We haven't done so for quite a while now. Wikiproject tropical Cyclone, and the Indian wikiprojects are active in this regard. =Nichalp «Talk»= 09:10, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
I have no idea what to do and how to start the automated bot process for this thing though. I got some inspiration from the Australian Wikiproject and their assessment of articles at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Australia/Assessment, but how should we assess, as a project, the articles' quality, and more importantly, what constitutes an important article for cricket? --mdmanser 09:44, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
Also, would it be a good idea to copy the Australian Wikiproject and create an assessment page for this Cricket project? --mdmanser 10:02, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I've pretty much set up everything now, with the templates for all instructions from the Australian Wikiproject. Basically, everything you need to know is here, but keep in mind that the Wikiproject Cricket template I've used here is different to the existing one. I've also changed the WikiProject Cricket template slightly so it now fits in with the new system.

Um - wasn't this already being done at Wikipedia:WikiProject Cricket/Version 1.0 articles? The new version is much prettier, though - merge? -- ALoan (Talk) 17:32, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
And easier to work with. So yeah, I'd say merge into the new system, it shouldn't take too long. Sam Vimes 18:59, 10 July 2006 (UTC)::Whoops my bad, didn't realise that a previous project existed. Is the only thing we need to do is to tag those articles found on the old page with the new quality templates? --mdmanser 07:26, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Working up articles to higher status

How do I do this? I'm thinking in particular about the Zimbabwe cricket team and the (wonderfully quirky) Ted Alletson articles. --Dweller 20:32, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, what the Zimbabwe article needs is a couple of key references, Wisdens or CricketArchive links or whatever (there's a couple of opinions, such as the fielding ability that should be fixed, and the listing of key events ought to be in prose.) Basically, I think what we should do on the review side is that someone who has had none or little involvement in the article should go in and read, then give a mark and some comments, and we could also start some kind of local peer review. Sam Vimes 21:04, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
Great. Someone? Anyone? --Dweller 21:30, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Minor Counties

I am sure there used to be a minor counties cricket team actually called Minor Counties, which was for the counties so minor they weren't even minor counties (a kind of "combined minor minor counties" team), not utterly dissimilar to the "Wales Minor Counties" side. Is my recollection correct? I have found some cricketers who apparently played for Minor Counties, but Minor Counties is just a redirect to an article about minor counties cricket.TheGrappler 07:06, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

This is probably a question that may be better answered by our members with book shelves bulging with Wisdens (Jack? John?) However, from what I can find from a search on CricketArchive the team has played 164 matches. Before 1980, that was mostly as part as tours (with some interesting effects: Devon batsman Derek Cole captained the Minor Counties against Pakistan in 1967), but then they played in the Benson & Hedges Cup along with Scotland and a few others.
So I'm guessing it was a representative team from the teams affiliated with the Minor Counties Cricket Association, and that some details on the team could be added to the article Minor counties o English cricket. Sam Vimes 10:35, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm at work so don't have my Wisdens to hand. But basically Sam is right: a "representative" side drawn from all the Minor Counties played a two- or three-day game against the tourists most years, and occasionally played other counties too. I think (but may be mistaken) it was in the early days of the Benson & Hedges Cup when two Minor Counties sides plus a combined universities team were added to the then 17 first-class counties to make four leagues of five teams for what were termed "zonal matches": the top two in each mini league then proceeded into the knockout phase. If I remember correctly, the two teams started out as Minor Counties North and Minor Counties South, but later became Minor Counties East and West. One of the anomalies of the Minor Counties' representative sides from way back is that they often included first-class cricketers, because first-class counties' second elevens competed in the Minor Counties competition until the separate second eleven competition was set up (in 1960 or thereabouts). Will check all of this later. Johnlp 12:51, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
With all the tosh there is on this Wikipedia, it is quite reassuring to know that the cricket articles are in such safe hands! :-) TheGrappler 19:54, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
Checked Wisdens. Minor Counties North and Minor Counties South competed in the B&H Cup from 1972 to 1975; Minor Counties East and Minor Counties West from 1976 to 1979. In 1980, Scotland were included and only one Minor Counties side took part after that. The first-class counties' Second XI competition started in 1959, but several counties continued to play in the Minor Counties for several seasons thereafter. Yorkshire II were the last second eleven winner of the Minor Counties Championship in 1971. All except Somerset had left by the mid 1970s, and Somerset Seconds finally left after the 1987 season, and "Wales Minor Counties" competed from 1988. Some Welsh counties had had teams in the Minor Counties Championship before the Second World War: I can find records for Monmouthshire and Denbighshire, but neither seems to have been very successful. I'll try to incorporate some of this into the Minor Counties article when I get time. Johnlp 23:09, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Rating systems

User:Crico has written a number of quite good articles at Cricket Rating Systems and individual rating systems articles which have been added to category:Cricket awards and rankings (see Special:Contributions/Crico). I've never heard of a number of these ranking systems and individually, the articles might be hard to justify keeping as they are not well known or used. However, as a set they paint an interesting picture of the difficulty of ranking cricket teams and I would therefore argue for their retention if nominated for deletion. User:Tychocat has made some useful suggestions at Talk:Herman's Cricket Ratings. What do others think? -- I@n ≡ talk 16:10, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Captaincy Debate

I've changed the England captaincy box over from Michael Vaughan's page to Andrew Flintoff's. See their talk pages for an expalnation of why, and tell me your opinion on the matter. Istartfires 16:53, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. It was me who reverted it before when it looked as if Flintoff was only going to be stand-in captain for one series, but I think it's the correct thing to do now. Stephen Turner (Talk) 17:41, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Yay! Go Captain Freddie!!! Ahem. Yes, I quite agree (obviously), it seems like the right thing to do! :-) Istartfires 19:52, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I've also taken the liberty of changing it on the England team page - have a look and see if you think it needs to be changed anywhere else - maybe the articles themselves? Istartfires 20:05, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. There is a Test match starting tomorrow (13 July) and Vaughan certainly won't be captain, but nor will Flintoff. So calling him captain at this juncture seems premature, even plain wrong. We're not meant to be in the business of prediction: it could be that he will be confirmed as captain in just a couple of weeks' time, but it could also be that he won't be, through further injury, disinclination or because Strauss makes such a success of it. I think we should wait to see. Johnlp 20:54, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm forced to disagree with you. The ECB released a statement just this morning confirming that Strauss is merely the stand-in captain, i.e. deputising for Flintoff, not Vaughan. I reiterate: to all intents and purposes, Flintoff IS the England captain for AT LEAST the next six months, including, need I mention, the Ashes? The ECB clearly regard him as such, so why shouldn't an encyclopedia? Istartfires 09:43, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I merely think you should wait until he has actually taken up the post. As and when he does, the question won't arise. But until then, it's not a fact, and encyclopedias should deal in facts. It's only a matter of a couple of weeks, at most, and then it'll be known for certain one way or another. Johnlp 20:15, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I never said it was a quantifiable fact, in that it's not been done formally yet. However, you must concede that Flintoff is the de facto captain, if not quite the de jure captain just yet. That said, he essentailly will be next thursday - is there any point changing it back in the meantime? Do so if you wish, but I think it's a bit pedantic. Perhaps an explanatory note on Flintoff's, Vaughan's, and the team's page would suffice? Something along the lines of the debate outlined above. Maybe Staruss deserves a mention too - I think he's doing a fine job personally, and he clearly relishes the challenge. Istartfires 10:40, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

... and now? Johnlp 22:55, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Now indeed sir. It is truly a sad day for all cricket lovers. Put Strauss in instead, I don't care any more. Istartfires.

Categories

Following the recent discussion about the categories (now archived), I've made the changes that we had consensus on around the skills and forms categories. I've left women's cricket on the root level as requested. The history and country categories are now working well.

By the way, I decided against the proposed admin & governance category as no one supported it and a couple were doubtful about it, so I think the consensus there is "forget it", unless anyone else wants to reiterate it. --Jack 12:50, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

This project moves quickly and accomplishes a lot, at least at the meta-level. I will read some of the discussion of categories because I know that it will be educational for classifying everything in my head, on my hard disk, on my bookshelf, in my file cabinet, in my shoebox of paper memos to self.
Jack, what software did you use to produce the chart of proposed categories? --P64 20:28, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
MS Visio 2003. --BlackJack | talk page 13:14, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Untagged picture

Can someone please handle the issue about George Ulyett's picture that is mentioned at User talk:Jguk Tintin (talk) 08:01, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Done (also at 08:01 UTC!). -- I@n ≡ talk 08:18, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks :) Tintin (talk) 09:54, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Cricket songs

Hey all, since we have lists of cricket in film and television, cricket in fiction, and cricket poetry, does anyone think we could have a list of cricket songs? I'm inspired by the recent article in Cricinfo, and I'm sure there's more songs out there related to cricket (I can think of some). I'm not sure it's worth a separate article though - I'd want to include it as a section in cricket in film and television, which I'd rename cricket in popular media or something. -dmmaus 22:22, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

There seem to be songs on the poetry page at the moment. Stephen Turner (Talk) 10:39, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

History of cricket sub-categories

In keeping with consensus in the recent categories discussion above, I've made changes to the history structure to relocate stray articles to specific categories and to relate the history sub-categories to the geographic ones.

For example, 1726 English cricket season is in category:English cricket in the 18th Century which is a specific sub-category of the sub-generic category:History of English cricket. That category is a child of two parents, one historic and one geographical — category:History of cricket and category:Cricket in England respectively.

You will note that category:History of cricket is a main category of the root category:Cricket itself and that it also contains category:History of Australian cricket and category:History of Test cricket.

category:Cricket in England is part of category:Cricket by country and this includes category:Cricket in Australia which follows a similar pattern in that it leads to category:History of Australian cricket which is being developed as per its English counterpart. At present it has one sub-cat category:Australian cricket in the Golden Age and this has some season stubs and a seasonal template as per the equivalent English category.

Obviously, the intention is to develop the other countries using the same structure.

I hope you can follow the above but it's best to navigate the hyperlinks and you'll see what's going on. Can anyone make any additional suggestions? --Jack 10:20, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

  • the above has been copied back here as it got archived without comment.

The categories concerned are:

I apologise if this has been discussed before, but I'm not in favour of these, and I don't think that there was consensus for these new categories. IMO The era breaks are arbitrary and serve no purpose except to introduce another layer of categorisation for readers to have to wade through. Terms such as "Golden Age" are POV and innapropriate for categorisation. Navigation between articles would be better done by use of a template such as (for example): {{English cricket seasons 1969 - 2000}}. The articles currently in these categories should move up one level to History of <countryname> cricket. The previous discussion was confusing as several other issues were discussed in the same thread. -- I@n 12:25, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Consensus was based on the handful who bothered to make any comment at all. If people do not comment, their views cannot be known and so are not taken into account. The term "Golden Age of Cricket" is universally used throughout cricket literature from Cardus onwards to represent the period from about 1890 until 1914: there is nothing POV in that. As for categorisation, Wikipedia guidelines are in favour of categories and sub-categories and also of multiple approaches (e.g., via history and geography) to an article. There are such templates in use within both articles and categories: they were originally designed by User:jguk. --BlackJack | talk page 21:42, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I fully support Jack's changes and I was under the impression that the consensus was there for him to do it. The situation with the history categories was hopeless with stuff dumped in one category and no evidence of a structure, apart from the English seasons. Now we have astructure that can be built upon and that works. I tried finding articles via both the country and history routes and the whole thing is seamless. It works. It ain't broke. It is going to house hundreds of articles one day. Don't try and fix it.

As for your POV statement re the Golden Age, why then do I have a book by David Frith called History of Cricket in the Golden Age? Even Wisden uses the term. It is not POV but accepted terminology in as much as Test Cricket is used as a term for international cricket.

I think this discussion should cease immediately as there is no justification or usage in making further changes to the history categories apart from populating them with lots and lots of articles, all of which will fit nicely into the present lovely framework.

Lets just forget this and live in the house that Jack built! --GeorgeWilliams 11:11, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I wasn't suggesting for that Golden Age was an invalid tern, just that it was inappropriate for a category name. I also disagree that this simplifies the History of cricket categories - as I said above, it only creates another layer for readers to have to wade through. But having said that, I fully acknowledge that I'm in the minority here and as only Jack and George have responded, the consensus must be to retain the current structure. -- I@n 11:29, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
I have to agree with Ian. It must be better to delimt periods with objective terms like "from 1890 to 1914" or "from 1900 to 1914" rather that relatively vague ones like "in the Golden Age". When does the "Golden Age" start and end? Might you and I disagree about it? And "in the inter-war years" and "in the post-war period" are also ambiguous - which war(s)? When does it start and end? Something like "before the First World War" or, even better, "to 1914", "from 1918 to 1939" and "from 1945 to ?1960" would be better, IMHO. -- ALoan (Talk) 11:41, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Never realised that, but ALoan seems to be right here. Where would someone looking for 1974 information go, for example, when faced with the choice of "post-war period" or "late 20th century"? He'd actually have to click on the category to realise that it's from 1969 to 2000. Yes, it's duller to include the years instead of vaguely agreed period names, but it's more informative to an unknowledged reader. Sam Vimes Address me 11:46, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I think the structure is spot on and it complies with Wikipedia:Categorization especially as it provides more than one route to the article. I've tried George's test of navigating by both routes to a particular article and it works. However, I think there is a valid issue around the names but it is not a POV issue: it is do with exactitude. I'm afraid I would even change "18th Century" and "19th Century" because, if you look at them, the delimiter is not 1800 but Bonaparte! I think that each of the categories should be renamed to, for example, category:English cricket to 1815, category:English cricket from 1969 to 2000, category:English cricket from 2001. I vote someone should nominate the names for change but the structure should be retained and built upon. It's articles that are needed, especially re non-English history. --AlbertMW 12:24, 1 August 2006 (UTC)


All this is fair comment. I'm glad some of you are happy with the structure and I would strongly recommend working with that at least until such time as we get many more historical articles in. It is difficult to judge it at present with so few articles, other than the old English seasons. As for the titles, yes I concede that they are inexact and so I propose to rename them all in line with Albert's proposal. Unless there are any objections to the rename I will put this forward to the CfD on Sat 5 August and quote this article for reference, so if you wish to add to the consensus view please do so. Thanks to all for your interest. --BlackJack | talk page 19:15, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I keep coming back to this. The "consensus" was to go ahead and do something about the main history article which was becoming cluttered but to keep a distinct history section, which I was thinking of submerging under the "cricket by country" category. So I made use of what was already there and started building the categories described above by I@n. This is why I ended the quoted piece with a request for more ideas. It's over a month ago and I've forgotten all the whys and wherefores by now.
Looking at it again from I@n's perspective, I think we could improve things by having an "all seasons" category under, for example, "History of English cricket" and combining the years templates in use throughout. "History of English cricket" would also contain perhaps "events in English cricket", "club histories" and the like but I think we would need a category called "English cricket tours overseas" to contain articles about all the tours from 1859 onwards. This would be complemented by one under "Cricket in England" called "Overseas cricket tours of England". I'll explore this some more and try to draw up some kind of model if I can get it uploaded. Leave it with me.
I've decided not to do anything with present categories for now which is why an earlier statement has been struck out. --BlackJack | talk page 06:38, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Revised categories proposal

[This subheading helps me but feel free to delete it. --P64 00:39, 2 September 2006 (UTC))]

This is a model showing a revised categories proposal. The root is category:Cricket and its level 1 sub-cats are the collection on the left plus category:Cricket by country and category:History of cricket. Concentrating on these two, you can see that they each have a set of level 2 sub-cats by country, so we have category:Cricket in England on the country side and category:History of English cricket on the history side.

Proposed cricket categories model

Each of these level 2 categories by country is likely to develop a number of level 3 sub-cats such as clubs, grounds, competitions, etc. under country and clubs, events, general histories, etc. under history.

I propose that at level 3 under country, each country should have a full collection of season records. So, for England, there would be articles for every season since the 16th century held under category:English cricket seasons. For Australia, there would be articles for every season since the 1850s under category:Australian cricket seasons. In each case, the seasons category would be reached via both the country and history routes.

I also propose that we give special attention to tours and quite a few articles about tours have been written already. Again at level 3, I would have categories on the country side called category:Overseas cricket tours in X and on the history side called category:X cricket tours overseas. Each of these articles would therefore have two homes: hence 1961 Australian cricket tour of England would be in both category:Overseas cricket tours in England and in category:Australian cricket tours overseas.

This model puts all the season articles into single categories by country and not by era, though tours are treated separately as I think they should be, especially as there seems to be an interest in creating tour articles. But the model also anticipates huge growth, which is inevitable given the enormous scope and scale of cricket history, and will therefore prevent the level 1 and level 2 categories becoming cluttered. --BlackJack | talk page 21:20, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

The general idea is sound - I'm just concerned about where the tours will go. I think there's an argument for having each tour belong to a season (Category:1961 English cricket season, say) so that information on everything in a season can be easily found, but at the same time the tours are definitely part of the history, both those overseas and in the country. Therefore, I think Category:Overseas cricket tours in England and Category:English cricket tours overseas ought to belong in the history of English cricket category. Perhaps even in a separate subcategory (Category:International cricket competitions in England) to allow us to add the World Cups and Champions Trophies and whatnot that have been held in a country.
I'm just throwing out ideas here, and probably aren't too good at articulating them - but I think everything needs to be well thought out before we start creating it. Sam Vimes | Address me 11:03, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
I agree we need to think it all through. I see we have a Category:International cricket competitions, which I've never noticed before today, and nearly all the tour articles (mostly stubs) are in there. We certainly need to make allowance for ODI competitions and the like. I'm inclined to put all of this on ice and allow a lengthy period for ideas to come through. I suggest we keep this discussion on the forum and not let it be archived. --BlackJack | talk page 20:36, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm in general agreement with Jack's map above and thank him for the hard work he's done in this. I do however like that idea of putting it on ice for the time being as not enough people are involved in this discussion to get a good brainstorm happening. Also, there just doesn't seem to be a urgent need with the number of history articles we have.
I do though come back to my concern right at the beginning of this section regarding (for example) category:West Indies cricket in the post-war period. At least two others have concerns and the question remains, is there a better way? IMO, we don't need those categories (at this time anyway). They seem to be there to create a solution for a problem which does yet exist. -- I@n 01:05, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
I hate to be picky but there is a small error in Jack's model where the Australian tour items (from and to) are both on the wrong side. This means the relationship connectors between "to/from England" and "from/to Australia" would actually cross over. However, the principle of the model holds good and it would undoubtedly work if there were a huge volume of historical articles. The thing is that there are very few, including many in the comps cat, and it looks like a majority are stubs.
Having had a rethink about this, I'm inclined to do nothing with it for now and move all the English (for example) articles into category:History of English cricket. I think for now that as long as each country has its own history article, as they do, then nothing more need be done, other than to increase their populations. --AlbertMW 11:33, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Oh, cluck! He's right. The Aussie pair are the wrong way around and there should be a relationship crossover. Apologies but I did knock it up during the lunch hour (feeble excuse).
Anyway, I've been addressing these unwanted categories by proposing several speedy deletes which should be acceptable as I was the author, no significant edits by others and project consensus here. See: Category:Candidates for speedy deletion.
I decided to keep category:English cricket in the 18th Century because it has a lot in it and I intend to add much, much more very soon. I also decided to keep the Golden Age category but have proposed a speedy rename to years 1890 to 1914 as suggested by Ian: this category has several finished articles in it. --BlackJack | talk page 20:33, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure of the issues in the revision. At the moment, simply browsing the cricket categories without reading any articles is educational. And I have no list of articles evidently miscategorized. More later. --P64 00:39, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
Category browsing done. Category:Cricket teams is interesting to me, you must know from my other Talk. If someone writes and article an article on the history of Eton cricket or Oxford cricket, will it go here (as well as in history)? Is it generally or universally true that Sussex CCC enters teams in every competition that welcomes a county team? -I'm thinking about the relationship between competition and team. (Category:Cricket competitions is revealing. As I have said elsewhere, in British English (or sports talk?), a "league" is a type of competition.) --P64 17:55, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
Category:Cricket culture is the one that I don't understand. Is it miscellaneous? If someone writes a good article on amateurism, will it go here? Does the answer depend on how narrowly it focuses on amateurism in cricket? I suppose this category will grow a lot. --P64 17:55, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Deletion sorting

There's an entry in Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Cricket which has just been relisted as no-one has bothered to vote. -- I@n 00:41, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Faetured list candidate

List of Ashes series — here -- I@n 07:33, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

It was promoted FYI. -- I@n 16:24, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Batsman's hattrick

See the last line of Hat-trick#Cricket. Is there something called a batsman's hattrick ? Tintin (talk) 06:18, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I've never heard of it, but I don't doubt that some of the more flamboyant commentators might call it that. -dmmaus 06:48, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
I've never heard of it either. I don't think it's a common phrase. It was only added on 7 July too. I've removed it for the moment — it can be put back if there's a good source (i.e., not a one-off). Stephen Turner (Talk) 07:57, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia: WikiProject Rugby Union

  • Hi, I was just wondering if any of you cricket followers would be interested in helping out in WP:RU. At the moment we need some more members and the cricket wikiproject is a real benchmark. We could sure use some of your guys experience. If you are interest, leave your name on our participants list. BTW, sorry we nicked your home page!--HamedogTalk|@ 14:14, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Spam in Archie Jackson

User:Garrywarne has been adding an external link to this page which contains nothing but a copy-paste of the CI article. Stephen and myself have repeatedly removed it and warned him with little effect. Some admin needs to interfere if he adds it again. Tintin (talk) 04:18, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

He just did it again with a caption of "Please use this link!". Could some admin block him for a short time? Stephen Turner (Talk) 16:05, 1 August 2006 (UTC) Garrywarne This link is an apology
Blocked for 24 hours. Sam Vimes | Address me 16:19, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Category for Deletion

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion#Category:Cricket_lore and place your comments if you are interested in keeping this category. --BlackJack | talk page 21:36, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

or indeed deleting it. Stephen Turner (Talk) 21:55, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Images in team infoboxes

[from Talk:Australian cricket team]

wouldn't the Cricket Australia logo be more appropriate to the top of this page? Why is there just an Australian flag?—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 220.237.166.156 (talk • contribs) 10:18, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

That sounds like a reasonable suggestion. It would be nice to have a standard across all the test teams. At the moment, I see 8 flags, one one day shirt, and a photo of players. JPD (talk) 10:40, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
The team logo or a team photo would be best: however, don't they tend to be copyright, so we would have to rely on fair use? Is the flag the best free choice? -- ALoan (Talk) 10:52, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
I think that's a fair idea that I've never thought about before. My first thoughts were that the Cricket Australia logo should be kept for use on the Cricket Australia page since it's a body that governs a number of different tournaments. But then I looked at the national football teams and it seems as though that the governing body logo is used. So really, I'm not entirely sure. I might give this one some more thought. --mdmanser 11:16, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
The association logos are used to represent the teams in many contexts. The only issue I can see with them is that it probably would be fair use. I really don't like the team photo - the article is about the the team in general, not the 11 players from a specific match. JPD (talk) 12:07, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
I'd say a team photo (if we can get one) is my 1st choice. Logo (eg. Image:CricketAustraliaLogo.png) as 2nd choice and national flag as 3rd choice. In the case of Australia, the baggy green cap was removed not that long ago by the image police because of fair use concerns. That would be my other number 1. Maybe someone can take a decent photo of a baggy green cap at one of the cricket museums, or perhaps even one of the retail ones you can buy from sports stores. -- I@n 01:15, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

CB Fry

Just to let you all know, after a bit of a tussle, I've succeeded in getting the astonishing Mr Fry into the very short list of people accepted into the list of Polymaths.

He's currently one of about a dozen people accepted... and he's flying the flag for cricket!

--Dweller 10:31, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, Category:Polymaths and subcategeories names a few more... -- ALoan (Talk) 11:11, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Yeah... I added him to them, too! The main article has been the subject of a fierce pruning... a few officious editors are being very tough on what's "allowed" in! :-) --Dweller 11:15, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Talk:Fielding_(cricket)#List_of_test_fielders

The list of notable fielders has been defunct since February. That's six months.

I think we'd all agree it should be an important addition to the Wikipedia.

I'm not sure how you find criteria. One suggested is where players were selected as much for their fielding prowess as anything else. I'd disagree. Derek Randall, for example, was picked for his batting. He was also renowned as a great fielder.

What about Viv Richards? As a youngster, he was outstanding as a fielder, but it would be bonkers to allege that he was picked for that!

Anyone got a good idea to break the impasse? --Dweller 11:42, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I think we need to say something like "Fielding has always been an important part of cricket, but greater emphasis has been placed on fielding since the early 1970s and the burgeoning of one-day cricket. All cricketers are required to field when their team is bowling, and many take exceptional catches from time to time, but a few cricketers are widely recognised as excelling in the skill. Examples include [... and a few examples, such as Jonty Rhodes ... ]."
We should try to keep the list as short a possible - say, six. Is there a list in Wisden we refer to? -- ALoan (Talk) 13:24, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
It might be better to avoid such a list as it would depend on the POV of the person adding the names and there is nothing to prevent people adding even nn names to the list. Tintin (talk) 13:44, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm sure we shouldn't have such a list, unless it's based on an objective criterion. Otherwise everyone will add their own favourite cricketers. We've seen this in several other lists already, particularly all-rounders. Stephen Turner (Talk) 15:16, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Does Gary Pratt belong on the list, though? ;-) JPD (talk) 15:27, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
The neatest solution, for the all rounders, is to delete the lists but leave in the "double" template - it is an objective standards, and, by and large, they are outstanding all rounders. It should be possible to do the same for the other articles: wicket-keepers already has a list of the ones with the most dismissals, and there are similar objective templates for batsmen (like {{Australian batsmen with a Test batting average above 50}}) and bowlers ({{400 Test wickets club}} and {{5WI 25 times}}).
It is a bit more difficult for fielders - the fielders who have taken the most catches are simply the ones who have played in the most matches. Has anyone defined a "fielder's average" - something like catches / matches, with a suiable qualification like 20 matches? -- ALoan (Talk) 16:45, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
That is not reliable. An average fielder who regularly fields in the slips will usually have a better catch/match ratio than a brilliant one who stays in the outfield. Tintin (talk) 11:43, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
It would be entirely POV. I don't believe anyone has ever been selected for an international team on the basis of fielding alone. If a player is a great fielder like Bob Simpson, Brian Close, Colin Bland, Clive Lloyd, Jonty Rhodes, Paul Collingwood, etc. then it's a bonus for his team and that's all.
Where would you draw the line? How many of you know that the late Fred Trueman was a great fielder? Very unusual for a fast bowler, but indeed he was a brilliant leg slip. --BlackJack | talk page 16:03, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Players' Nicknames - A BIG Issue

Can we please, please, please stop the idiotic and utterly incorrect practice of titling articles re players with some POV nickname that the guy may or may not have had at some point in his dressing room trials and tribulations? Seriously.

A couple of months ago I was looking for info re the famous Lancashire and England captain of the 19th century, Albert Nielsen Hornby (to quote his full name), better known to the whole of cricket's literature as A N Hornby, or, to quote Francis Thompson, as "O my Hornby". I couldn't find him so I thought: "Well, that's a new article we need" and set about creating one.

And then I found "Monkey" Hornby.

Which was promptly redirected.

For a start, "Monkey" was a nickname that Hornby had at school and in his early years in cricket. It came about because he was exceptionally agile and incidentally played rugby for England as well as cricket. But after he became captain of Lancashire, his nickname was "The Boss". Every single cricket book I have ever seen calls him "A N Hornby", so why is he called by his adolescent nickname on here? Some people label such drivel as "unencyclopaedic". I call it "infantile".

A few days ago, I was doing something on the 1961 Aussie tour of England and couldn't find Graham McKenzie. Why? Because he was known in the dressing room as "Garth". That has also been redirected. You will not find a single reference anywhere in cricket books to "Garth McKenzie", though thousands to Graham McKenzie.

If the nickname artists are right, then why haven't we got Fiery Fred, Typhoon Tyson, The Big Ship, Lol Larwood, George Statham, Beefy Botham, Gilly Grace and so on?

Taking Botham as a good example, his "Beefy" sobriquet arose quite late in his career. I have a magazine from the late seventies featuring an interview with Tony Greig who more than once refers to Botham as "Both"! And it is a fact that Botham was referred to as "Both" for many years after he first got into Test cricket. So is he The Both, Beefy Botham or plain old Ian Botham?

Gilly Grace? Absolutely. But it would never do to call him that on here, would it?

Please let us drop these silly nicknames once and for all. --BlackJack | talk page 18:58, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree 99 per cent with you, and particularly dislike Shrimp Leveson Gower, which seems about as uncomplimentary a soubriquet as "Monkey" (and should have a hyphen in the surname, too). The 1 per cent that doesn't agree is reserved for Tiger Smith, who is pretty unrecognisable as Ernest Smith and even as E.J. Smith. But there should be nothing here that a robust redirect system won't be able to handle. Johnlp 20:20, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

My sentiments also. WRT to Garth McKenzie, I created the article as Graham originally and then moved it to Garth because Cricinfo called it that [2]. Perhaps he's one of the 1 percenters. -- I@n 00:40, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
I also don't like putting players' nicknames in the first line of the article, unless they're really, really well known by that name (The Don probably qualifies). Sometimes I wonder whether they're real nicknames, or just what the tabloids happen to be calling them this week (The Monster?). At best they belong much later in the article. Stephen Turner (Talk) 01:12, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Funny you should mention Monster as a nickname for Monty... which is also a nickname. And I dare say many people wouldn't know Plum Warner's first name without looking it up! --LiamE 01:41, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

The Indians cricketers list have a few where a nickname that is very different from the real first name appears in the title - Vinoo Mankad, Shute Banerjee, Montu Banerjee, Jenni Irani, Nana Joshi, Buck Divecha, Bal Dani, and Bapu Nadkarni. The difficult calls were Irani, who I knew very little about, and Divecha (but who appears as Buck in the first line of Wisden obit and in the title of the CI page). Joshi was called Nana to distinguish him from another P. G. Joshi who was his contemporary and was known as Sham Joshi. Would like to hear if anyone has comments or different opinions. Tintin (talk) 06:10, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

I actually agree entirely with Johnlp here and should have made clear before that there is a significant difference between a POV nickname and an actual "used name". A nickname is something like "Garth" or "Beefy" that is used by teammates but not in the sources and probably not by people outside cricket: the player's family, for example. A "used name" is more than a nickname because the player calls himself that and so does everyone else including the sources. Tiger Smith is the classic example. To a lesser degree you have variants on the first name such as Jack Hobbs and diminutives of it such as Don Bradman and even Plum Warner, all of which are "used names". "Plum" is obviously a play on "Pelham".
I think we need to be guided by the sources here and above all Wisden. On the basis of Ian's findings, I think we can forget about CricInfo!
I've checked a few references about Graham McKenzie and I actually found one where his nickname is mentioned. It's in The Fast Men by David Frith where he says Graham was called that because of his stature being likened to the "Garth" cartoon character. But Mr Frith otherwise makes clear his subject is Graham McKenzie and that is how countless cricket followers remember him.
The H D G Leveson-Gower article was badly in need of improvement and, as you say, even the hyphen was missing.
One problem is initials because all players are known via the stats in this way. We need to be certain if Wisden and the other sources refer to the player by his initials in their prose sections and in many cases such as W G Grace, C B Fry, K S Ranjitsinhji and A N Hornby they do.
I think with the Asian players it is even more important to recognise the "used name". There is a similar syndrome in soccer with Brazilian, Portuguese and Spanish players: should the article be Pelé or Edson Arantes do Nascimento? --BlackJack | talk page 12:30, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Re the new versions of Ranji etc, shouldn't they be K. S. Ranjitsinhji etc as per the format that we agreed to last year for players with initials ?
Yes, we decided on K. S. Ranjitsinhji or KS Ranjitsinhji but not K.S. Ranjitsinhji or K S Ranjitsinhji. Stephen Turner (Talk) 15:47, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
There are a host of double redirects to clear up after the recent move. What is wrong with Ranjitsinhji or even Ranji? -- ALoan (Talk) 16:49, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Article History of cricket

I'd like to propose a review of this article, which was at one time the only history article we had, but which now looks out of place as more specific histories have been and are being written. Virtually everything in the article up to the 19th century exists elsewhere, but in greater detail and with a wider scope, so about half of the article is redundant. Material about the later periods could be made into new articles.

The big problem with an article like this is that the scope is too wide and if we develop this instead of handling history by means of period, place and event articles, we are going to create something that is too huge to handle.

I haven't studied it in detail yet but my first thoughts are that it should be completely broken up and reduced to an introductory topic only. The template box which lists linkages to the rest of the historical portfolio is very useful.

Incidentally, a lot of the early history in the article is wrong both factually and by important omission, so it needs a substantial revision in any case!

Has anyone any ideas or suggestions? --BlackJack | talk page 12:12, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you. The best technique is probably to have a single-paragraph introduction to each period, with a link to the main article on that period, as described at WP:SS. See World War II for an excellent example of this style. Stephen Turner (Talk) 15:04, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
It needs to be compressed. Reduce the number of headings and précis the text. Get more sources, images and remove tables. Focus on key developments of cricket and more on cricket in modern times than in older times. =Nichalp «Talk»= 18:22, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Done it. I've effectively provided a short overview of each major topic within each key period (usually by centuries) and given linkages to the specific articles where these exist. I'll keep an eye on it and add other linkages over time: we are very short of 19th century articles, I notice.

Why focus more on modern cricket? I don't understand that view at all. We are talking about the history of a sport which, in terms of "first-class" matches alone, goes back over 300 years. Nearly all its key developments (apart from one-day cricket) took place up to 1890. Modern cricket has actually very little to offer in terms of history. --BlackJack | talk page 11:19, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

This is an important topic to Wikiproject Cricket and I hope that it can be featured soon. I'm suggesting the following changes based on what happens in WP:FAC.

  • To answer your question about the history, generally while writing historical articles over a large span of time, we sample a wider times span in the past, and a lesser timespan in the recent history. For example India#History has more details about the past 100 years than the first para which is 1000+ years.
  • A lead is required. The lead summarises the entire article. 300-400 words is the norm.
  • Avoid using so may subheading, suggest dividing it into relavent timeframes at the top heading. eg Bodyline, Apartheid era,
  • Match fixing & Hansie Crojne is not covered
  • Olympics needed
  • The article should flow chronologically as a whole and not be interrupted by smaller sections
  • Photos needed
  • Inline references needed

Regards, =Nichalp «Talk»= 12:46, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

  • I personally don't intend to do any more with the article at the present time. It now covers the whole timespan from Saxon origins to 2006 (and beyond) without placing too much emphasis on any one topic or period. I don't agree that the Olympics should be mentioned as cricket is a sport that has always thrived without such a corrupt and worthless associate. I think periodic controversies and peripheral topics like match fixing should be the subject of specific articles (there has always been match fixing: it was rife in Georgian times and the famous player William Lambert was banned for life). Items like those have had no impact on the development of the game whereas Packer and Bodyline and Georgian gambling and outsize bats all did. As for a lead, the article is now itself a lead into the more specific material elsewhere. I agree about photos but it is so difficult to get them with all the copyright limitations. --BlackJack | talk page 12:42, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I think it is now very good indeed and you personally, Jack, should take a lot of the credit for that. Johnlp 21:02, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Great article. Touches everything that is important. Tintin (talk) 04:42, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I've edited it so that it has a lead and looks a bit more like other Wikipedia articles. The text is very good though. I'm a bit uncertain about having a separate article of Zimbabwean cricket issues though. Sam Vimes | Address me 20:07, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Burnside1980

I've just noticed that User:Burnside1980 (contribs) has been creating a lot of articles on obscure first-class cricketers. All first-class cricketers automatically meet our notability requirements, but I still find it strange. At the very least, the articles need serious cleaning up.

He's also been unlinking a lot of redlinks, which is definitely the wrong thing to do.

Stephen Turner (Talk) 17:28, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I think he may be working through this list, which makes me wonder about the necessity of that at all. Perhaps we should replace it with a link to here which has a to-do list at the top. -- I@n 10:24, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
He has been blocked for 48 hours for for repeated copyvios. Perhaps they need to be deleted rather than cleaned up? -- ALoan (Talk) 11:18, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Cricinfo / CricketArchive discrepancies

This isn't particularly a new problem, but it may be worth mentioning again, especially for those (such as me!) who like to write biographical articles for less famous players. I've been vaguely looking through players from non-Test/ODI nations in the 2005 ICC Trophy, having discovered that unlike earlier tournaments this had List A status, meaning that there are players from unlikely countries (not least Oman!) who, in theory at least, qualify for articles. But as a slightly less obscure example, there's Nandikishore Patel of Uganda:

The CA profile page seems to be a simple mistake since his FC career dates are mentioned on the same page, but the other two results are clearly irreconcilable - especially as CricketArchive has Patel scoring 74 on his first-class debut against Namibia while Cricinfo claims he made a pair in his only f-c match (presumably this one against Kenya). I have to follow an existing reference (no original research), but here they disagree fundamentally.

It seems that there are two possibilities: either that Cricinfo is right, and that CA has conflated the figures of two Patels; or that CA is right, and that CI have omitted three-quarters of Patel's f-c matches. I'd be inclined to go with the CA scorecards, and say that he has played four f-c games, but would I be right to do so? Loganberry (Talk) 17:03, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Cricinfo has an 'N Kishore' playing in http://ind.cricinfo.com/db/ARCHIVE/2004/OTHERS/ICC-CONT/SCORECARDS/NAMIB_UGAN_ICC-CONT_23-25APR2004.html , which is one of the matches that CA attributes to him. Tintin (talk) 17:09, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Of CA's four first class matches (http://www.cricketarchive.co.uk/Archive/Players/78/78884/First-Class_Matches.html), CI attributes 3 to 'N Kishore' and the fourth (http://ind.cricinfo.com/db/ARCHIVE/2005/OTHERS/ICC-CONT/SCORECARDS/KENYA_UGAN_ICC-CONT_22-24APR2005.html ) to N Patel. Going by circumstantial evidence CA is correct and CI is wrong. Tintin (talk) 17:11, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Also: compare Patel's and Kishore's Cricinfo summaries. Note the time and place of birth: they're almost certainly the same player. Trouble is that we're into "no original research" again, since I always add both the CI and CA summaries in "External links", and I can't do so this time without trying to explain the discrepancy. Admittedly Patel/Kishore isn't the most important player in the world, but the point stands, I think. Loganberry (Talk) 17:12, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't think it's OR to report and explain discrepancies in the sources — or at least, not an unacceptable amount of OR. Stephen Turner (Talk) 17:48, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
If choosing which source is more reliable were not allowed under OR, then the project would have a lot of problems! JPD (talk) 17:59, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
All right then. I've now put up a stub under Nandikishore Patel, with a redirect from Nand Kishore. Loganberry (Talk) 20:13, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
The correct spelling for that name is either Nandkishore or Nandakishore. Nandikishore conveys a different and somewhat silly meaning, but I guess we can't help it :-) Tintin (talk) 05:15, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I find cricinfo very unreliable for biographical and historical material. They don't edit their work properly, IMHO. CricketArchive I find very good on the whole with only minor errors of detail. --BlackJack | talk page 18:45, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Good show! In (1) Players' nicknames, (2) Cricinfo/CricketArchive, and (3) Old County Teams you are dealing sensibly with some basic matters that are commonly ignored or messed up.
Has ACS, or any publisher such as Wisden or CricketArchive, or the developer of a comprehensive database on CD-ROM (is there one?) released any reference lists of entities such as players and clubs and grounds? How much standardization has occurred whether explicitly (maybe ACS) or not (everyone follows Wisden or the first e-database publisher)?
Illustration: maybe databases use GCCC for Glamorgan County Cricket Club and also to name teams that were reasonably representative of Glamorgan County's best in matches played before there was a proper noun Club. Illustration: the discussion has covered player identity; it seems we have access to revealing player pages but no reference list or table. Illustration: similarly for grounds (how many Lord's? how defined?). --P64 00:25, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Maybe distinct from any reference lists that historians or database developers may use, there are legal names of people, clubs, and grounds. I suppose the reference to establishment of a club in 1839 concerns a legal process, such as registration for the right to serve alcohol or whatever. Or is registration of the proper noun as some kind of trademark? --P64 00:31, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Mark Feltham

Can anyone help out with improving this article on the former Surrey and Middlesex cricketer? --Dweller 12:34, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

The problem with it is that, after the first paragraph, it has no encyclopedia-style facts in it at all, just unsubstantiated claims. The facts of his career aren't that difficult to find through cricinfo or cricketarchive; without those, we don't really have an article at all, and options might be simply to delete it or leave it as a substub. There are, of course, already 1350 or so substubs on players who did reach Test or ODI status still waiting to be tackled. Johnlp 13:46, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Fielding image

There are some more pertinent comments on Image:Cricket fielding positions2.svg on Talk:Fielding (cricket). One day this image will be finished :) -- ALoan (Talk) 13:43, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Rohan Gavaskar

That SMG named him Rohan Jaivishwa Gavaskar is a famous story but CI and CA has him as Rohan Sunil Gavaskar. What happened to the Jaivishwa part ? Tintin (talk) 05:35, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Edits to modern Indian bios by King 2000uk (talk · contribs · count)

Is it just me or is there a need to keep an eye on this? There seems to be massive POV and also I wonder if he pasted them in from a profile off some website. Blnguyen | rant-line 02:03, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

I reverted Mohanty and Chopra and put a tag on Ramesh. Seems someone with a Tendulkarophobia. Tintin (talk) 04:41, 17 August 2006 (UTC)



Another WP:CRIC admin candidate

Our West Indies specialist Deville has kindly offered himself up for scrutiny at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Deville. Participants may wish to pass by there and leave a mark. -- I@n 00:00, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Just a note to anybody out there, since Dweller was apparently previously unaware (expressed in the above arena) that there are admins within the cricket project who are available for administrative tasks.

So there are 19 18 admins, so 16.8% opf registered members are admins. This is quite high I think.Blnguyen | rant-line 01:29, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Jguk was not an admin (but should have been IMO). -- I@n 04:37, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Nor am I; I've struck through my entry there. Loganberry (Talk) 17:00, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Add Raven4x4x. There is also ALoan who has not listed himself among the participants. Tintin (talk) 04:44, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

George Hirst

Please see this move. Comments ? I have always found him name as George Hirst. Tintin (talk) 04:41, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I saw this too and was confused, as I'd not heard this before. The author claims to have got this direct from Headingley. I've found nothing to support it in any of my books so far. But I'll keep looking. Johnlp 23:01, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

: This is ridiculous. Some teenage girl in the ticket office probably looked in a players' register and said: "Oh, yes, he was definitely George Herbert". We'd better move Fred to Frederick Sewards Trueman then. You won't find any source that says he was George Herbert Hirst unless it is being deliberately formal and is using his full name in that context. He was George Hirst to everyone. --BlackJack | talk page 18:17, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, you're not going to believe this but it is evidently true that Hirst was often called "George Herbert" in full. I've spoken to a couple of old-timers who have supported Yorkshire since before the war and they both agree that people would sometimes refer to Hirst as "George Herbert" and not just as "George". I've also seen one or two references in books I have that, on first reading, seem to be making formal use of his full name by way of introduction but, then again, they could just as easily be using accepted nomenclature (indeed they do not introduce other cricketers in any formal way). So, I have withdrawn what I said above and I think we should go with George Herbert Hirst: it is, after all, strictly correct in any case.
I did read through the existing article and I could not believe that some rubbish introduced months ago via an IP address had been tagged on to the end and never spotted, so I deleted that. The article does need expanding and is still "stubbish". --BlackJack | talk page 11:45, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Yuvraj Singh and Shanthakumaran Sreesanth may be on DYK (front page)

Hello. I've expanded and reffed these two bios in the last two days and put them up for nomination at Template talk:did you know for inclusion on the front page (if selected) WP:DYK. If selected, they will probably get featured in the next 3-4 days. Seeing as these two players are current players and also will be playing ODIs for India against Sri Lanka in the next few days, I'm guessing it will probably attract some vandalism or POV edits in response to upcoming results, so could people consider putting them on their watchlist for a while? Also to make sure that it doesn't get excluded from DYK because someone dropped by and put POV into it. Thanks, Blnguyen | rant-line 08:14, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Blnguyen, can you please check with someone whether Yograj acted in many Bollywood movies. Of the 8 movies listed in IMDB, only two are Hindi. Most of the movies listed in his article sound like Punjabi movies. Tintin (talk) 08:21, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
thanks again for picking up more of his errors. The other 6 movies were listed as Punjabi language, so I have fixed the opening sentence. Thanks again. Blnguyen | rant-line 08:28, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

new (?) infobox

I was making some bios for some Bermudian ODI cricketers, and it occurred to me that an appropriate infobox template would be one which lists ODIs and first-class stats. I was sure such a template existed and remembered once seeing it, but I can find no mention of it on the project page. I was going to make one myself, but I figured that if it didn't exist by now, there might be a good reason not to make it; and if it existed already, that's a really good reason not to make it...:) So, two questions: 1] does such a template exist? 2] If not, is there a good reason not to make one? One good reason to make such a template is that most cricketers from (e.g.) Bermuda will likely not play in any Tests, so the standard infoboxes will always have many empty boxes. -- Deville (Talk) 09:02, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

  • What we really need is a unified infobox where you can turn on and off whichever columns you want. Is that possible with the current wikicode? Stephen Turner (Talk) 16:11, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
    • Yes, very possible. Can you let me know what possible columns (i.e. types of matches) and what possible rows (i.e. statistics) you want? It wouldn't take too long to design that. Sam Korn (smoddy) 16:26, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
      • Thinking out loud, I'd say that the optimal template would be one which could make one, two, or three columns, each colum of which could be from the set {Test, ODI, Twenty20, First-class, List A(?)}. I say one column because historic cricketers would only have first-class stats, and three because one could imagine putting (Test, ODI, Twenty20) in a cricketer's main box. I guess if one wanted to get crazy one could put all five columns in one box, but that would probably be too much. As far as rows, I'd say the stats we have now are pretty good; of course, more could be added, but we probably don't want too many. If one were to add stats, I'd vote for strike rate and economy. -- Deville (Talk) 17:22, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
        • I created {{Cricketer Infobox}} a while ago for pretty much this exact purpose – choosing two or four columns, and then choosing whichever headings you want on them. It got changed a little when the metatemplates got banned, but could be updated with the new Parser functions to make it easier to use. It's only in something like two articles at the moment. – AlbinoMonkey (Talk) 08:16, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
          • It looks great. I just went and used it for three of the newest Bermudian cricketers, and it worked fine. So now this template is used by five pages...:) I'm going to go back any apply it to the other Bermudians, and I guess this could be the standard template for all ODI players from non-Test-playing nations. Now, should we put a reference to this template on the project page? I'd have never known about it aside from this conversation. -- Deville (Talk) 13:11, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Joshurtree just made an edit to Michael Vaughan which involves putting all the stats on a subpage, Michael Vaughan/info, and the template including them from there. What do people think about that? My inclination is to leave all the stats on the main page, otherwise it's too subtle for editors. Stephen Turner (Talk) 13:23, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Discussion continued below. Stephen Turner (Talk) 13:29, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Cricket Grounds in Ireland

Just been looking through the category:Cricket grounds and I see we don't have a category:Cricket grounds in Ireland or any articles about them. Does anyone have ready material to knock up a couple of stubs and create a sub-cat? Remember that Northern Ireland and the Republic are combined in a cricket sense, as they are in rugby. --BlackJack | talk page 11:50, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Deletion discussion

The following cricket category is up for delete or keep as you choose. Please contribute at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2006_August_19#Category:Cricket_grounds_in_the_United_Kingdom

--BlackJack | talk page 13:44, 20 August 2006 (UTC)


Forget it. Nomination withdrawn as the category is part of a buildings and construction study so it is relevant to that if not to cricket. --BlackJack | talk page 14:56, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

England - Pakistan Test match

Please keep an eye on all Pakistan related pages. People have already started adding match reports. Tintin (talk) 17:20, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I would like to point out that if you go back to the original 1744 code of the Laws of Cricket, you will find that the umpire's decision was final then and it is still final today. Or is it? --BlackJack | talk page 18:57, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Law 21.10. Sam Korn (smoddy) 20:36, 20 August 2006 (UTC)


There should be a page about..

Sally the n power girl, she's fantastic! Speedboy Salesman [[User talk: Speedboy Salesman]] 22:09, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

She's the one who the n power ball guys try to chat up everytime there is a commercial break. Speedboy Salesman [[User talk: Speedboy Salesman] 13:18, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, there should be an article! I don't know enough about her. The article would be like 3 lines long Speedboy Salesman | talk page 12:00 07 September 2006 (UTC)

  • I think you've hit the key point there. There really isn't that much to say about her except that she's probably pretty and works for a bank. Sam Vimes | Address me 11:06, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Father of WikiProject is back

Jguk is up and running again!!!!Blnguyen | rant-line 01:32, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Racism/accusations of racism in cricket?

I'm new to the excellent wikipedia cricket pages, and can't find an article on racism or accusations of racism in cricket... would be interesting; such accusations seem to come up a lot, especially during test controversies (e.g. recent comments by Shaharyar Khan implying Hair is racist). Is there such an article? If not do you guys think it would be a good idea to have one (I don't have the knowlege to create one)? Russ 07:40, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

It would be quite difficult as we would be digging up quotes by people and sticking them together, rather than document concrete things like centuries, hat-tricks, etc, which are clearcut and dry. Blnguyen | rant-line 07:58, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

There have been academic books written on the subject so an article would certainly be possible. A wider approach, offering pages on the social history of cricket, which would address racism as well as other issues, would, in my opinion, be more interesting. Personally, I learnt much more about the social history of England through reading Derek Birley's well-known book than I ever learnt at school. jguk 12:22, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Writing an article would be easy when compared to protecting it from everyone who want to add their personal opinions :-) Tintin (talk) 12:29, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Infobox question

Where an infobox has a section for the date of a player's last appearance, is that the first or last day of his final match? I've been assuming the latter - ie his last appearance as a f-c (or Test, or whatever) player, even if he wasn't actually on the field - but I thought it worth checking. Loganberry (Talk) 15:21, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I think I use the last day of his last match too. Stephen Turner (Talk) 13:19, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
I use the first day. Tintin (talk) 15:21, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

New infobox/construct/thingy

I don't know how many of you are aware that there are new parser functions for use in templates. The switch function could be hugely useful for the problem of having to update several articles when a statistic changes.

So far i've just created the new construct for Michael Vaughan as an example. The top of the page just references Template:Infobox Cricketer alt with no parameters. All the statistics are stored at Michael Vaughan/info. Now if you want to add Michael Vaughan to some random list of cricketers along with the number of tests hes played you would add {{:Michael Vaughan/info|tests}} instead of the old manual method. This would automaticly be updated whenever someone updates the info page.

The Parser Functions are currently available on a trial basis. So a small scale role out may be an idea until it is confirmed that they're permenent.

I hope you understand the muddled mess i've just written. Perhaps someone who does could describe the system in a more ledgeable manner. josh (talk) 13:21, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

If that means we don't have to update List of English Test cricketers manually any more, that's a huge advantage. I'll test it out now, with Vaughan. Sam Vimes | Address me 13:30, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
I hadn't thought about it being used in other places. That's definitely an advantage. But I fear it's all a bit subtle: editors won't know how to edit the infobox. Also, how efficient is the parser function mechanism? Would we be putting a heavy burden on the server? Stephen Turner (Talk) 13:32, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
This idea has some notable problems that occur to me straightaway. The first is the misuse of the default namespace (i.e. this should only be for articles). I can't think of an alternative area to put this. The second is that ParserFunctions should not be used to create pseudodatabases. There is a mooted extension known as "WikiData" that should take this place at some stage. Finally, I have made a conservative estimate, and concluded that, due to the limits on sizes of the includes in a page, we would be limited to 86 cricketer infoboxes per page. I can imagine this could become a serious problem. :-) Sam Korn (smoddy) 13:42, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
The pages can be put anywhere. I just made it a sub-page to group it together with its 'parent' page but it could also go at Template:Michael Vaughan stats or something. The only use for the switch function is for data storage. I haven't seen an example that uses it for anything else. Looking at the WikiData page it looks like the project is dead so this is the best we're going to get. I don't quite understand the last comment. Why would you want 86 infoboxes on a page. Do you mean that you could only link to 86 infoboxes? josh (talk) 15:29, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
The last point was a joke. :-) It's not true that the only use for #switch can be data storage. Would you use a switch/case statement for data storage if you were coding C/Perl/PHP? Of course not. You can use #switch in the same way as with proper computer coding. I made an example of this myself a couple of days ago (I can't find it anymore, of course - I fancy it may have been on one of my local installations...), perhaps for formatting statements or the like. As for the location, I don't think there can be a good location for this. Calling it a template is missing the point. That would be huge clutter in the template namespace.
Tim Starling (who programmed ParserFunctions, if you didn't know), specifically said that they should not be used for pseudo-databases. I seem to recall it was to do with server load. If something like that was truly needed, it could be programmed rather more efficiently than this ugly method. I'll try to find the quote, or try to find him on IRC.
The final reason for disliking this is that it is a hack and is ugly. I don't think we should play at being developers, misusing the tools they create. This was actually the reason ParserFunctions was created in the first place, and I'm still of the opinion that they are a Bad Thing.
Then again, I'm only me. Sam Korn (smoddy) 23:49, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
Damn. Missed the smilie. I don't think that it is a psudo-database unless multiple switches are used such as here. At the moment it is just a data structure. This is not like coding a procedural programming language. It is a formatting language with some data manipulation functions. The parser simply goes straight down the page parsing instructions as it goes. In the case of a switch statement you put data in and get data out, simple as that. Even formatting info is a type of data. I also don't see how it would clutter up the template namespace any more than the cricketer articles clutter up the main namespace.
The switch statement is going to get used in the fashion I did whether it is intended or not. 9 out 10 editors don't read the manual first and use the structures any way they see fit. josh (talk) 16:35, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
I disagree that this is not like coding a procedural programming language. It is becoming more and more so, which was the reason I opposed firstly the templated versions and only reluctantly supported using the software backend versions. MediaWiki code should not have complicated syntax. It should be easily editable by anyone who comes along. This adds another layer of difficulty to a new user coming along and editing statistics. Ideally it can be both automated and easily correctable by an individual editor. (This is actually also the reason I detest the Smarty libraries for PHP).
The point about cluttering the template namespace is completely different to the point about the main namespace. The main namespace is meant to be for articles, and that's what cricketer articles are. The template namespace is for templates, which are chunks of wikitext to be inserted on multiple pages. The template would correspond with the article on a basically one-to-one basis for current cricketers (at least 200, perhaps more if first-class cricketers were also involved). I can't equate what you've done with the role of templates. Apart from anything, most inclusions would only exist on one page!
By the way, I have undeleted the Michael Vaughan/info page, as someone had deleted it {{db-empty}}, which was a fair point. I have added a notice with <noinclude> at the top. Sam Korn (smoddy) 17:09, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

It is clear that we have a difference of opinion about Wikipedia editing and where it should go. So i'm going to stop now before we get bogged down in wikiethics. We could either go to the village pump to get opinions there or simply wait to see how switches get used and if this usage gets deemed appropriate or not.

Meanwhile, I think the Infobox could be simplyfied by using templates to eliminate the need to enter the abbreviation, flag and personification of a country in the parameters. The flag is easy. Instead of the current code you would add [[Image:Flag of {{{country}}}.svg]]. The other two require templates with a standard form. For example, Eng would be stored in a template called Template:England abbr or similar. I've droped a note on Wikipedia talk:Country referencing templates to find out if such templates already exist. josh (talk) 18:58, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

To what extent has anyone attempted to automate any of these? If so, where did you get the data from? Could some bot do everything, or is that too optimistic?

Stephen Turner (Talk) 13:36, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

This is certainly an interesting issue. They could be automated. However, there is no place on the internet where the stats are presented in a "scrapable" form (and we might end up blocked from sites if we attempt to scrape off them). The only way I can imagine we could manage to automate this would be to build our own database and use that to generate XML feeds that a bot could use to update pages. I haven't thought this all the way through (and I don't know if pywikipediabot could manage this), but it's certainly feasible. However, it would require a good bit of programming to get it up and running as well as inserting (manually) the scorecard from every match ever played. Sam Korn (smoddy) 13:46, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
Didn't User:*Paul* used to update List of English Test cricketers etc. automatically? In this diff, for example. He doesn't seem to be around now though. Stephen Turner (Talk) 14:01, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
I understood this was him using the existing totals and adding them to recent match scores... I could be wrong. Sam Korn (smoddy) 23:49, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Asanka Gurusinha

The above artile has just been deleted for being a copyvio. Could someone please re-write it? I can access the deleted version and re-add the infobox and the cats as and when a non-copyright infringing article is put in place - just ping me once it is done. TIA, --Gurubrahma 14:29, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Old County Teams (before the clubs)

We have articles about all the current county clubs, though most if not all are still stubs. I'm wondering about creating additional articles for the counties that played first-class cricket before their clubs were founded. This will apply to several counties: Sussex aka Brighton; Yorkshire aka Sheffield; Notts aka Nottingham; Lancashire aka Manchester cricket team; Essex aka Hornchurch; Middlesex; Hampshire; Kent; Surrey; Berkshire; Norfolk and Leicestershire all were involved in first-class cricket at county team level before any formal county club was organised.

I don't think it is appropriate to add the relevant material to the club article so in addition to, for example, Sussex County Cricket Club, we also need something about Sussex cricket up to 1839 when the club was founded. The main use for such an article would be as an xref from all the historical articles where that county's team is mentioned. Some of these go right back to the early 18th century.

I'm proposing to call it, same example, County cricket in Sussex with an xref to the county club article. Has anyone got any alternative ideas for a naming convention? Or any other ideas re approach? Thanks. --BlackJack | talk page 12:46, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I would be inclined to put it in the CCC's article, in a History section, unless there becomes too much material within the article. To me it seems most natural and useful to keep them in the same article, even if it's technically not the Club that long ago. Stephen Turner (Talk) 13:18, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
I was going to say the same thing as Stephen. The clubs arose out of these teams, didn't they? JPD (talk) 13:40, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
This is in the nature of random jottings, so I apologise in advance for loss of thread/coherence etc. I'm inclined to go with Jack's thought here, in that County cricket in Sussex is a different history from the history one would find in Sussex County Cricket Club: the latter would tend to concentrate on the triumphs and personalities of the present club in competitions since its formation. I think there is some merit in having, in the articles on the current first-class county clubs, a degree of uniformity in terms of the sections; that would also apply to the counties that currently have only Minor County teams, where at present all the articles are written to a similar format. Putting in a chunk of "prehistory" could unbalance some of these articles. That said, there's benefit in having some reference in a history section to the genesis of the present club.
An alternative to Jack's suggestion might be to have a Cricket in Sussex article that covers the history of clubs at village, town and county levels, and that cross-references to current clubs and the current competitions that clubs big and small within the boundaries of the county compete in. Johnlp 15:18, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
Are the counties in England or the UK stable in name and territory, at least since the Restoration, which covers the "first-class" history? Do the other major cricket countries also have stable political districts throughout their cricket histories, so that this approach has a chance to work, say, 99% of the time? Jack and John evidently agree on the approach, using political districts as the organizing principle for Wikipedia coverage, whether it be prehistory of cricket clubs (Jack) or social/regional history of the game and its play (John).
By the way, is one of you John Leach, the author of articles published by ACS on the web? --P64 00:10, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
From Wikipedia (a likely source), I know that the counties in England are no longer political districts (and the same has happened in some US states). It seems that traditional counties of England are entirely stable since 1888 and that they were exceptionally stable from the Restoration to 1888. But the real question is, internationally, how universal and stable is the organization of high-level cricket along lines of territories, districts --political one or not. --P64 01:05, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
In cricket terms, the concept of the "traditional" county as a basic unit is completely stable. Cricket does not reflect what you see on a modern map of Great Britain. Perhaps the best example is Lancashire, which officially is now a very small county indeed. But traditional Lancashire includes the whole of Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Warrington, Widnes and Barrow which are all now in other counties. Old Trafford is not now in Lancashire but in "Greater Manchester" and I think I'm right in saying that The Oval is no longer in Surrey.
It is well understood that Lancashire CCC represents traditional Lancashire and the people in the above places generally regard themselves as Lancastrian. It is perhaps cricket more than any other entity that binds people to their traditional counties. This bond is best illustrated by Yorkshire which, in spirit and despite its administrative divisions, is effectively a nation (and is big enough to be a nation too).
Certainly if you talk about a Sussex team in the days of Richard Newland and compare it with a team raised by Sussex CCC in the days of Ted Dexter, you are talking about the same thing in terms of the county and of the people represented. The only difference is that Newland's team was "cobbled together" from the county by a patron; while Dexter's team are all people employed by a formally constituted club but one which still represents the tradtional county of Sussex. --BlackJack | talk page 07:58, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, Jack. I daresay now that the 'pedia needs better grounding in clubs. Baseball, cricket, football, rowing, and even "college sports" articles all suffer, as does professional sports league organization and various team sports League and Association articles.
One of the clubs or sports articles does mention the need for formal organization in order to serve alcohol. In 1839, I suppose, every member was responsible for all of the clubs obligations --no limited liability. I wonder how much can be done without doing original research. Have academics covered the history of sports organizations (such as clubs) and orgs of orgs (such as leagues)?
Back to old teams in old counties: Do reference books and databases generally distinguish between Sussex CCC teams and earlier "representative" teams in Sussex county; between Glamorgan CCC teams and earlier teams in Glamorgan county? Or do the reference works list first-class matches played for Sussex in the 1830s and 1840s identically and sum them in one player-team record?
BlackJack: I'm wondering about creating additional articles for the counties that played ... first-class cricket at county team level before any formal county club was organised. Johnlp's alternative: have a Cricket in Sussex article that covers the history of clubs at village, town and county levels, and that cross-references to current clubs and the current competitions that clubs big and small within the boundaries of the county compete in. I think Johnlp is right that some counties merit a general article on cricket if not cricket history. Suppose Sussex is one. Should there be three cricket articles for old county Sussex: club, pre-club representative team, and the game? For the moment, until there is a lot more content, I think Johnlp has it right in the second of two following sentences from above: Putting in a chunk of "prehistory" could unbalance some of these articles. That said, there's benefit in having some reference in a history section to the genesis of the present club. --P64 17:29, 26 August 2006
A relevant point might be that it's actually incorrect that Newland etc played for Sussex CCC: they didn't. Sussex CCC is a club/organisation/company (?) that has a definite date of formation, parallels with other CCCs, and a legal existence. Other teams representing the county of Sussex before the formation of Sussex CCC were, as Jack says, cobbled together in an ad hoc fashion, and they often weren't "clubs" in any recognisable organisational sense of the word. They were teams rather than clubs. So while it's right that antecedents of Sussex CCC might be alluded to in the article on Sussex CCC, as part of the history that led to the club's formation, those antecedents aren't in themselves Sussex CCC. Johnlp 17:46, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Johnlp wrote earlier: That said, there's benefit in having some reference in a history section to the genesis of the present club. Whether it turns out to be the "genesis of the club" is an open question, maybe can't be answered except by original research? So call it the "prehistory of the team". --P64 17:55, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Until recently, each year's Wisden had a table listing, for each county, the dates of the first known organisation, the formation of the present club and when first-class status was acquired. (It doesn't give any county an earlier date than 1864 for the last.) For Sussex: First known organisation 1836, present club formed 1839, substantial reorganisation 1857, f-c from 1864. (Data from the 1999 Wisden, p439.) JH 18:38, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Super! I'll find a late 20th century Wisden in a Boston MA library, or buy one. "Substantial reorganisation" probably means business form but that may be replicated for the university sports clubs. I'll try to find out whether Sport History academics have covered this phenomenon in general. --P64 20:33, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
JH has there given a good example of how Wisden often needs to be read with caution. That table was faithfully reproduced since time immemorial, adapted slightly when Durham came in and never otherwise challenged. No one now believes that first-class cricket began in 1864 (Wisden itself began that year, which may well be a significant factor).
Interjection: Thanks. By study/training and affiliation/contacts I am well placed to handle that adequately, although only because I am not writing Cricket Club articles. For you there must be a practical question whether to populate Cricket Club articles/stubs with data such as that, direct from Durham and the preceding editor(?). And I gather many Wikipedians even here at cricket project lack secondary resources to do better. That is, I suppose improvement on Wisden's club data will in many cases require original research. --P64 end Interjection
The first time a Sussex team is definitely known to have played first-class cricket was in the 1720s, but the famous "two elevens" game in 1697 almost certainly involved a Sussex team. Sussex in the 1820s was declared "Champion County" (boxing style) by the press and it was their bowlers that forced the roundarm issue. Sussex CCC played its inaugural f/c match versus MCC at Lord’s on 10 & 11 June 1839, just after the club was formally constituted.
Johnlp makes a very salient point earlier re the clubs having a legal existence, whereas the earlier teams existed for the purpose of a single match only (in fact, they existed for the purpose of a single wager only) and were put together on the basis of gentleman's agreement or via "Articles of Agreement", which were short-term contracts. Not even Hambledon was a formally constituted cricket club: it was a social club that inter alia organised cricket matches and anyone could play for its own teams. --BlackJack | talk page 06:46, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
It's probably worth flagging a reminder that MCC is a special case. It was a formally constituted club with a legal existence from 1787 but it has no county affiliation. Middlesex County teams and Middlesex CCC are entirely separate, notwithstanding the ground-sharing arrangement they have. Having said that, just to complicate things there was an entity called the "Thursday Club" in the 1790s and 1800s which was officially an MCC offshoot but was in fact the Middlesex County XI at that time! --BlackJack | talk page 07:45, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
Regarding the legal existence: we have gentlemen's agreements, short-term contracts, and legally constituted organizations of more than one type. What was/is the significance of legal constitution as a cricket club in particular? Does it mean, for example, special permission to hire cricket players in contrast to special permission to brew alcohol or build a railroad? Or does it mean, for example, exemption from some taxes and fees? (I don't know of any research on such issues in the U.S. in any context: college life, commerce, non-commercial associations of adults, whatever.)
(Above I fixed my own bad link to professional sports league organization. Sorry about that. --P64 00:29, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Clubs

(importing some of my own comments from Old County Teams into this subsection)

pro sports in North America. For baseball in North America, all professional records are organized on league-season basis, back to 1871, and earlier professional records are not organized. No one counts non-league games, although for fifty years some of those deprecated "exhibition games" were (a) strong matches on the field or (b) important sources of income for players. Other pro team sports follow baseball.

college sports. In the U.S., I believe, Jack's question pertains (within Wikipedia, no original research) only to university teams. I guess the same is true in England: universities control and cover the debts today, where the students were once responsible? Oxford University Cricket Club (now there's a stub); Cambridge University Boat Club (1828); Dublin University Football Club (1854) --P64 17:29, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

[Wisden's] "substantial reorganisation" probably means business form but that may be replicated for the university sports clubs. I'll try to find out whether Sport History academics have covered this phenomenon in general. --P64 20:33, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

We need scholarship that does for clubs what Conceiving Companies by Tim Alborn does for corporations. Before the cricket clubs, were there any competitive whist clubs, say? Or merely dining and smoking clubs? Paul de Serville mentions board games and gambling but no competition. He mentions a transition from proprietor to member clubs beginning 1811. --P64 21:04, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
The big difference between cricket and baseball is this concept of "first-class" on the one hand and "league-season" on the other. First-class cricket has no dependency on any league or any season. To try and express such a complex concept in the simplest terms, it all depends on who is playing (except that it doesn't!!!). You probably get my drift there: first-class cricket is a maelstrom of its own making.
That's a "big difference" but I am thinking about American base ball in the 1850s-60s before the first professional league (National Association, 1871) and the modern superpower (National League, 1876). A time where something like first-class base ball needs to be defined independent of any league.
And I am mixing with, thinking with Wikipedians from America, Britain, (Canada,?) and Australia who write about various sports. I'm confident of my thought (above) that thinking about modern college sports is a great way for USAmerican team sports fans to gain perspective, but at the same time I am finding that there is no "Commonwealth English" meaning of much basic sporting language, even the general terms like club, team, and captain (see below, "Team, etc"). --P64 19:49, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
First-class cricket in its formative period relied heavily on social clubs, formal or informal, for its organisation and investment. These social clubs were also involved with horse racing, prizefighting, hunting, card games, barbaric animal "sports", you name it. Anything they could bet on, they did. Without gambling and its consequent investment in superior teams (i.e., at county rather than parish level), cricket would never have become "first-class". It would have remained a village sport only. The same people who formed MCC also formed the Jockey Club, by the way. --BlackJack | talk page 07:58, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
Great. This is interesting and may be crucial. If the other major team sports (competitions?) developed in other social settings --imagine schools or workplaces, having competitive interests other than gambling. (I read that workers formed Arsenal FC back in the 19th century, not as a vehicle for gambling I'm sure. )
The 'pedia needs a Jockey Club article on all the jockey clubs. --P64 19:49, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Wisden Online

Not all of it, unfortunately, but a lot of the feature articles and obituaries from old editions are up on the Cricinfo site. In particular, "Dates in Cricket History" may be useful. An author isn't credited, but I think it's by Rowland Bowen.

Dates in Cricket History

JH 21:12, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

I believe the chronology is based on an original by Bowen and it has been amended to remove Bowen's many spurious entries. The credit for that goes to Peter Wynne-Thomas who successfully de-bunked the more ridiculous "evidence" being used re early cricket. This chronology as it stands is quite useful as a basis.
The Wisden Archive is excellent and every cricket enthusiast should bookmark it. --BlackJack | talk page 07:38, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Old Teams in Old Counties

Just to separate out this question from User:P64 - Back to old teams in old counties: Do reference books and databases generally distinguish between Sussex CCC teams and earlier "representative" teams in Sussex county; between Glamorgan CCC teams and earlier teams in Glamorgan county? Or do the reference works list first-class matches played for Sussex in the 1830s and 1840s identically and sum them in one player-team record?

This is not easy to answer because the county name is freely used and you can read an account which talks about the 1830s and the 1840s and about "Sussex" in both decades. But Sussex CCC was founded in 1839 so there is a difference (at least in terms of legal existence). I believe most people in their minds tend to subjugate the club and think only in terms of the county.

There is an additional problem around the age of the source you are reading. Many older books adopted the now outdated view that first-class cricket began in 1864 and so, as far as they were concerned, Sussex CCC was "not first-class" until then, let alone Sussex County.

But I believe the trend nowadays is to see things in continuous terms and "sweep up" the county club in passing. Thus, the Sussex team that was proclaimed "Champion County" in the 1820s is to all intents and purposes the same one as Sussex CCC two decades later. If you take a famous player like William Lillywhite who played for both Sussex County and Sussex CCC from 1825 until 1853 and look at his record on Cricket Archive you will see that he has a continuous first-class record. This is a modern source which reflects the trend I mentioned.

How that translates into a treatment of pre-club county teams vis-a-vis county clubs, I'm still uncertain. It might well come down to a practical consideration like size of article! --BlackJack | talk page 07:24, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I suspect that we're all, realistically, going to accept whatever Jack proposes here because, frankly, we know who's going to do most of the work in this area! And we're grateful whatever you decide to do, Jack!
But I'd still be happiest if there was some distinction between pre-club teams and the clubs themselves, with the club articles having a "prehistory" section that outlines what happened before but a separate (though linked) article chronicling the history of that county's cricket in the age of ad hoc teams and no central club organisation. But Jack, you'll probably do most of the work: why not try doing one county the way you want to do it, whatever that is, and then come back to see whether others feel it's right, or needs amendment? Johnlp 08:34, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
I think John is right that we need a separate treatment, especially with the very old counties like Sussex, Kent and Surrey. But at the same time we need to be sure that there is a clear xref between club and county; we definitely a pre-club historical piece in the club article. I haven't looked at all the club articles yet but none of them seem to be have had significant development yet. I'll think about it some more and then pick one county as a pilot, probably Kent, which had the most continuous history. --BlackJack | talk page 12:17, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Category:English cricketers

This is so big that many of its sub-categories have disappeared from the top and can only be found if you go to the appropriate letter of the alphabet. This is poor in presentation terms. Is it a problem with Wikipedia generally or something specific to this category? --BlackJack | talk page 08:18, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Applied this fix Tintin (talk) 14:35, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
We agreed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cricket/archive19#No-one should be in both Category:English cricketers and Category:English Test cricketers that... well, what it says. But no-one's actually done the work. I should probably get CricketBot to sort this out, though I haven't had time to run CricketBot for a few months. Stephen Turner (Talk) 20:03, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Ball tampering controversy in fourth Oval Test v Pakistan

I was not sure if everyone involved in this project kept an eye on Deletion Sorting/Cricket, so I thought I would post here too. The above mentioned article is at AfD. It would be great if someone could improve the article or merge it in a relevant place. - Aksi_great (talk - review me) 18:30, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Indoor cricket

What do people think of this diff? Obviously, it needs rewriting at a minimum, because it sounds like self-promotion at the moment. But it seems too minor to me to appear in the main Cricket article at all. I haven't reverted it, because I wonder if it's bigger in other parts of the world, particularly Australia. Stephen Turner (Talk) 20:08, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I've reverted it, because there are no links or references and the names don't bring anything up on a Google search (well, actually, they do, but nothing that makes me believe it!) I'll leave a note on the author's page so if it turns out that I'm wrong, they can come back. Johnlp 23:57, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I think the real point is that indoor cricket is so different that it is not a form of cricket in the same sense that the others are. JPD (talk) 10:32, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Image:Cricket fielding positions2.svg

Above is today's featured picture on the Main Page. -- I@n 01:14, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

There are some comments on the misplacement of a few fielding positions (and the format of the diagram) on Talk:Fielding (cricket). -- ALoan (Talk) 13:45, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Old County Teams

Further to the discussions above, I've made a start on tying up the histories of the first-class county clubs with those of the earlier teams that represented the counties. See Sussex cricket team and Sussex County Cricket Club for the first treatment. --BlackJack | talk page 19:47, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Well done, Jack. I think that's excellent. You've left room to add more detail in the historic article without over-balancing the CCC article with too much prehistory. Johnlp 20:43, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

As a matter of taste, I still don't like a Sussex cricket team page that covers most of the teams referred to like that simply with a link to the CCC article, but if we are going to have two articles, the alternative is a lot of duplication. If this is the model we are going to use, then Jack has indeed done a good job. JPD (talk) 09:42, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
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