Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cricket/Archive 75

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Archive 70

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Archive 73

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RfC on the use of flag icons for sportspeople

An RfC discussion about the MOS:FLAG restriction on the use of flag icons for sportspeople has been opened at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Icons. We invite all interested participants to provide their opinion here. Qwyrxian (talk) 02:37, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Another loss!

Former England cricketer and famous commentator Tony Greig passed away. Zia Khan 05:45, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Glenn McGrath

Another addition to ICC Cricket Hall of Fame. Zia Khan 00:07, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

List of batsmen who have scored over 10000 Test cricket runs

Quite a dire little article/list - I'll try to improve it a bit. S.G.^(GH) _ping! 18:36, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

List of Test cricket hat-tricks FLRC

I have nominated List of Test cricket hat-tricks for featured list removal here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured list criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks; editors may declare to "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Giants2008 (Talk) 00:33, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

PHP script for use at Wikipedia:WikiProject Cricket/Graphs/Requests

For Wikipedia:WikiProject Cricket/Graphs/Requests, which has no responses since 2012-06-07, I have created a PHP script which can generate batting graphs of any player for Tests or ODIs, with data taken from http://www.howstat.com.au. Source code is at Wikipedia:WikiProject Cricket/Graphs/Batting graph PHP script, and the list of GET parameters for this script is at Wikipedia:WikiProject Cricket/Graphs/Batting graph PHP script/Parameters. Anyone else who wants to use the script will need to install PHP and a web server software – you may want to see [1], [2] and [3] for how to execute PHP scripts. (There are many PHP bots that edit Wikipedia, and their operators should have the requirements). Graphs created with the script are in the SVG format, which can be uploaded to Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons, and does not lose quality on zooming in.

Also, libxml 2.6 or later is required to parse the data. It is included with some PHP or web server installations, such as The Uniform Server, or it can de downloaded from http://xmlsoft.org/. If the script does not give any output, or gives an error message which is someting like "Fatal error: Class 'DOMDocument' not found", then chances are you don't have libxml installed.

To anyone using this script, you may need to make the following changes in your configuration (php.ini) for the script to work:

allow_url_fopen should be set to On
display_errors should be set to Off (unless you really need it) as since HowSTAT data is not well-formed HTML, libxml errors written before the opening <svg> tag may result in your browser refusing to give the output due to XML parse errors.

However, the script does not have these features, which might be added in the future — anyone who knows PHP (see Category:User php) could help in adding them and/or improving the script:

Support for T20 (this requires data from another source e.g. ESPN Cricinfo).
Creating graphs for a certain number of innings or within a specific date range – useful for "split" graphs for players with a large number of innings.
A similar script for bowling graphs (there are many bowling graphs created by User:Masai 162 – you can see his upload log to see how such a graph is made).

These are four graphs which I have uploaded using this script (you can see their description pages for the request URLs used to make each graph)

-- jfd34 (talk) 10:51, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

The two Punjabs

Quick note, in case this goes otherwise unnoticed, but an IP editor has depopulated the entire Category:Punjab, India cricketers category, moving it to Category:Punjab cricketers, and moving the Pakistani players who were previously in that latter category to Category:Punjab, Pakistan cricketers. Is this... okay? I'm pretty sure categories should not be depopulated manually and without oversight, especially as they leave an empty cat afterwards. Is it not a matter for WP:CFD? Should these changes be reverted and a discussion started there? Not really sure, tbh; hopefully somebody else has an idea... Cheers, Buttons to Push Buttons (talk | contribs) 11:23, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

IP's rationale is sound for the articles' current state, but I don't think Category:Punjab cricketers really should exist. I doubt anyone could successfully argue that the Indian team is the primary topic over the Pakistan team, considering both teams began play only after Partition ([4], [5]). I'm going to boldly move Punjab cricket team to Punjab cricket team (India), and afterwards C2D "Category:Punjab cricketers" to match. IgnorantArmies – 14:33, Thursday January 3, 2013 (UTC) And done. Same thing was apparently brought up three and a half years ago, but never acted on. IgnorantArmies – 14:36, Thursday January 3, 2013 (UTC)

Hat-tricks

Pottering around obscure Warwickshire cricketers, I came across Robert Cooke (cricketer, born 1900). In his second first-class match in 1925, he finished off the Kent innings by taking a hat-trick (in fact, four wickets in five balls); later in the same match, he was himself part of a hat-trick by the Kent bowler Charlie Wright (who had been the fourth of Cooke's four wickets in five balls). Does anyone know if there are other instances of bowlers being both hat-trick takers and hat-trick victims in the same game? Johnlp (talk) 18:26, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I suspect the instance may be unique. Have had bit of a browse through Frindall's final ed. of Wisden Book of Cricket Records (pub 1998), but admit there may be something I've missed. Indeed Frindall doesn't cross-ref Cooke and Wright as being same match in the way he does for the two instances which follow. The matches found where it could have occurred but didn't (i.e. records on Cricket Archive don't show the players as being both wicket-taker and victim) - Sayer/Ridgway during Oxford Uni v Kent in 1958 [6], and Ali Gauhar/Tausif Ahmed during United Bank v Karachi Blues in 1994-95 [7].RossRSmith (talk) 03:20, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Polly Joseph or Paul E Joseph Stadium?

I'm finishing off basic articles relating to cricket in the U.S. Virgin Islands and I've come across one of two venues on the islands to have held first-class cricket. According to CI and CA the ground is called the Polly Joseph Stadium, but other than those two sources, there's little mention of this name. However, looking on google maps there is a stadium in the far west of the island near an old Danish Fort called the Paul E Joseph Stadium. I wonder whether CI and CA have got Polly confused with Paul E? Howzat?Out!Out!Out! (talk) 16:34, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Unlikely, as the Polly Stadium, according to them, is in Christiansted, which is on the north side of the island. I found this mention of a Polly sporting complex and this mention of the Paul E. Stadium, so it might be both. Can't see any cricket size pitches in the Christiansted area, but there is a large baseball park that could double up, but it isn't called anything Joseph. Looking further, this explains who Paul Emmanuel Joseph was - and he was born in Christiansted but mainly worked in Frederiksted (where the Paul E stadium is). And then there is this match report from the only first class game ever held there - it refers to it being held at Paul E, but reports from Christiansted. Maybe this was where they all stayed and hence it got reported as the town where it is? More I think about it, I think it would have been played in Frederiksted at the Paul E. stadium. Hmm, found this article, which again calls it Paul E., but again says it's in Christiansted. Also says it's a baseball stadium normally. Might need to find a native of St Croix to work it all out! The-Pope (talk) 17:24, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

All very confusing! Polly or Paul E, Christiansted or Frederiksted! Paul E. Stadium seems to have dimensions for cricket too, but according to one article it has been condemned. I've found this article referring to the redevelopment of the Paul E. Joseph Stadium and surrounding sporting complex in Frederiksted, which mentions that there will be no place for cricket there in the future. I'm fairly certain now it is the one in Frederiksted and CI and CA are confused, but I guess some more investigating it needed! Howzat?Out!Out!Out! (talk) 18:27, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Could "Polly" have been "Paul E"'s nickname, meaning that both names are correct? Alternatively, it's the sort of mistake that could result from a telephone call where "Paul E" was misheard as "Polly". JH (talk page) 10:11, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, John. I too was wondering about the "mis-heard phone call" possibility, given the story years ago about Errol Hunte being recorded as R L Hunte.RossRSmith (talk) 10:24, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

I emailed the U.S. Virgin Islands Department of Tourism, and their Marketing Manager, Trina Soto-Clarke, was kind enough to reply with the following: "Thank you for your interest in the USVI. There is only one stadium here on the island of St. Croix, Paul E. Joseph Stadium which is located in Frederiksted. The Polly is the way the name of the stadium is phonetically pronounced locally (hence Paul E.)." Which, I think, clears things up nicely. Harrias ^talk 17:36, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Excellent! That clears that one up! Now to let CI and CA know! Thanks Harrias :) Howzat?Out!Out!Out! (talk) 23:27, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Squad lists and the definition of an all-rounder

Ravi Bopara, Tim Bresnan, Samit Patel, Luke Wright and Chris Woakes. Daniel Christian, James Faulkner, John Hastings, Mitchell Johnson, Mitchell Marsh, Glenn Maxwell, Steve Smith. Ravindra Jadeja, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Irfan Pathan, Yusuf Pathan and Yuvraj Singh. Johan Botha, Jacques Kallis, Albie Morkel and Ryan McLaren. What do they all have in common? They're all listed as all-rounders in our international squad lists. Now, with the obvious exception of Kallis and a couple of others, I'd say these are largely bowlers who can swing a bat a bit, or batsman who can roll their arm over. I'd really like to get a lot of them back to their specialist positions. Do we have any semi-official standard? Or can we define a lot more players as all-rounders because of the looser definitions of the role in the shorter formats?

There's also a smaller issue with the wicketkeeper sections. Jonny Bairstow is listed there for England - because he can keep. But how many times has he kept for England? Shouldn't he be listed as a middle-order batsman, with wicketkeeper listed in his bowling style?

Which brings me to my final point... The way of listing a squad is established across cricket articles (example here). I was wondering whether we might tweak it, so while ordering the players in the same way, we removed the column-spanning headers and added in a new column: "Primary role". This would mean you could make the table sortable by name, domestic team, age etc. You could also split the roles section into three columns so one can sort them. The table isn't especially wide, so width isn't a problem. Below is an example of what it might look like. Thoughts? HornetMike (talk) 15:28, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Name	Age	Primary role	Batting style	Bowling style	Domestic team	Test	ODI	T20	S/N
Alastair Cook (Test/ODI captain)	39	Opening batsman	Left-handed bat	Right-arm off-break	Essex	Yes	Yes		26
Stuart Broad (T20 captain)	37	Pace bowler	Left-handed bat	Right-arm fast-medium	Nottinghamshire	Yes	Yes	Yes	8
Nick Compton	40	Opening batsman	Right-handed bat	Right-arm off-break	Somerset	Yes
Jonny Bairstow	34	Middle-order batsman	Right-handed bat	Wicketkeeper	Yorkshire	Yes	Yes	Yes	51
Ian Bell	42	Middle-order batsman	Right-handed bat	Right-arm medium	Warwickshire	Yes	Yes		7
Matt Prior	42	Wicketkeeper	Right-handed bat	Wicketkeeper	Sussex	Yes			23
James Anderson	41	Pace bowler	Left-handed bat	Right-arm fast-medium	Lancashire	Yes	Yes		9
Graeme Swann	45	Spin bowler	Right-handed bat	Right-arm off-break	Nottinghamshire	Yes	Yes	Yes	66

England cricket team

The history section is almost entirely unreferenced and full of dodgy tone and massive amounts of original research. And the performance section is out of date as well. Roll up 'yer sleeves! S.G.^(GH) _ping! 23:16, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

List of ODI international records

I have nominated List of One Day International cricket records for featured list candidate here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured list criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks; editors may declare to "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status.--Black hole77 ^{talk | contrib} 05:36, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Stats help please

Hi all.
I've thoroughly firetrucked the stats in {{Infobox cricketer}} for Joe Burns (cricketer) and Kushal Janith Perera.
Would most appreciate if someone could clean up the mess I've made there.
--Shirt58 (talk) 11:30, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Not a problem. On Burns you just hadn't identified what the columns were; on Perera the "Columns" tab had been deleted. I've rectified both, but I haven't updated Perera to take account of the fact that he now needs a third column to handle his ODI debut. Johnlp (talk) 11:43, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Peter May

The article used to say "An outstanding right-handed golfer, May was reputed to have become bored with the game, bought a set of left-handed clubs and became a scratch golfer both left and right-handed." It came up on Ask Steven today (http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/600973.html). He couldn't find any reference to it. It was added by an IP editor in 2008 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Peter_May&diff=prev&oldid=220115571 )Tintin 05:30, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

I think I've heard that said about some top cricketer or other, but I don't think that it was May. I know that Ted Dexter was a fine golfer; could it have been him? Or it could be an exaggeration of the feat of Brian Close, who did switch from right-handed to left-handed, but whose handicap had been 4 as a right-hander and was 9 as a left-hander. See the last paragraph of his Wisden CoY article. JH (talk page) 09:51, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Portal:Australian cricket team in England in 1948

Hope you guys like it! :) ♛♚★Vaibhav Jain★♚♛ ^Talk ^Email 14:25, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Better off as redirects?

Bangladesh and Hong Kong in One day Internationals and Bangladesh and United Arab Emirates in One Day Internationals and List of One Day International cricket matches played by Bangladesh and Bermuda. The first two feature just one match, better to redirect to the relevant sections in the 2004 and 2008 Asia Cup's, while the last one contains two matches played between the two, one in the Associates Triangular Series in West Indies in 2006–07 and another in the World Cup, so again better to redirect? Anyone in agreement? Howzat?Out!Out!Out! (talk) 16:22, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

*slaps self* Think it might be impossible to redirect the last one as there would be two seperate articles to redirect to! Howzat?Out!Out!Out! (talk) 18:15, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Maurice Leyland (again)

The subject of the spelling of Leyland's name came up a while ago, but working on his article, I've come across something else. Every source gives his birthplace as Harrogate (and if anyone can check old Yorkshire yearbooks and the like, which gave places of birth, I suspect it would be the same). But his ODNB entry (here for those with library subscriptions) gives his birthplace as Bilton. It doesn't explicitly say, but judging from its list of sources, and the fact that it gives a street address, I suspect that this information comes straight from his birth certificate. And the writer was Anthony Woodhouse, who knew a thing or two about Yorkshire cricket. To indulge in some wild OR, I wonder if he was born while the family were away from home? And to use some inadmissible evidence, the 1901 census gives his birthplace as Bilton and his home as Harrogate (and his name as Morriss [sic]) but the 1911 census says he was born in Harrogate and was called Maurice. At the moment, I've said he was born in Harrogate but left a note explaining the discrepancy in sources (but not the census as that would not be a RS). But I'm not sure. Where should we say he was born? And the ODNB article does not say that he lived in Harrogate at all when growing up, which he obviously did. Sarastro1 (talk) 23:09, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

I think the best we can do is include a footnote giving both birthplaces. Could there possibly have been confusion between two different people, Morriss Leyland born at Bilton, and Maurice Leyland born at Harrogate, with Woodhouse searching for Maurice's birth certificate but finding Morriss's instead and assuming that it must be the right one? JH (talk page) 09:55, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately not. All the other details such as parents check out, despite the odd spelling, so they are the same person. Sarastro1 (talk) 11:17, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

It's possible that one is the location of a hospital where he was born and the other the town his parents lived in. In any case, Jhall's suggestion is a good one. --Dweller (talk) 10:49, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Given the distance between the two places, I'm not sure why they would have been so far from home in 1900. Also, I'm not sure that a hospital would have had a road address in that period. I agree about the footnote, but which place should the main body and the infobox use? Sarastro1 (talk) 11:17, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

To quote from the article, "Bilton, Harrogate is a major suburb..." - I think you're thinking the wrong Bilton. Leyland's father is in the 1901 census as being born in Bilton too, but a later hand has written "Harrogate" next to it. The house they're living in is in the ecclesiatical parish of Bilton St John's. Johnlp (talk) 12:42, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Who filled in the 1901 census, the enumerator or the head of house? If it was the enumerator, then it is likely that the ennumerator failed to check the exact spelling of the name. Names are only requirEd in censuses for audit purposes - a month or so after the census, an auditor will take a small proportion of the census forms and revisit the houses to check them out. AS long as the individual could be identified during an audit a few weeks later, the exact spelling of the name was of little consequence.

It's an enumerator: the handwriting is the same for all the houses in the street (Wensley Terrace, Ripon Road, Bilton, Harrogate). It's not until the 1911 census that forms are routinely filled out by the head of the household, and in that census there's generally a different return for each house. Johnlp (talk) 13:49, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

In which case it might well be the enumerator's spelling. Martinvl (talk) 13:55, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Good sleuthing, everyone. --Dweller (talk) 14:24, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Ah yes: the solution is that I'm thick! Thanks to Johnlp in particular, and they can lock me back in my box now... Last words on the spelling: Leyland's birth certificate certainly says Morris, but the 1911 census filled in by Ted Leyland says Maurice. So perhaps they changed their mind. I'll fix my horrendous Bilton error in the article once I've finished slamming my head into a wall. Sarastro1 (talk) 16:48, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Succession boxes

Numerous articles have "succession boxes" or varying degrees of usefulness, from that for England captains (which gets quite messy when the person held "office" a few times) to that for oldest Test cricketer (unreferenced, incidentally) and even for county captains. Laying my cards on the table, I find them irritating and pointless and would quite happily remove the lot. What do other people think? Sarastro1 (talk) 14:06, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree that they can get quite messy sometimes, but on the whole I'm in favour of them. Like most other things, they can get silly; some politicians who have held many offices have this issue. However, I have spent many an hour mindlessly browsing through pages linked by such boxes, and that in itself proves their use to me. Harrias ^talk 14:27, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm not a fan, TBH. Over at WP:FOOTY, we've tried to eradicate as many succession boxes as possible in favour of using navboxes. – Pee Jay 22:30, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

I think they're fine where there really is a succession and, like User:Harrias, I do use them... much more than the boxes that make brightly coloured bars across the pages, in fact. Johnlp (talk) 00:06, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

A navbox would be probably be best for cases like the England captains. Hack (talk) 13:33, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Navboxes are better, as they offer the same utility as a succession box, but also offer the reader the opportunity to skip around the order. Having said that, they should only be used for really significant things. The England captaincy is good. England short-leg fielder would not be. --Dweller (talk) 12:20, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Something like this? I've not verified the entries, but it seems very plaudible. Is there a reliable list somewhere? Cricinfo? -- Ferma (talk) 20:55, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Oldest Test cricketers table (collapsed)

Oldest Test cricketers
Name	Team	Born	From	To / death	Notes
James Southerton	England	16 November 1827	15 March 1877	16 June 1880
Nat Thomson	Australia	29 May 1839	16 June 1880	2 September 1896	jointly with Gregory until 1896
Ned Gregory	Australia	29 May 1839	16 June 1880	22 April 1899	jointly with Thomson 1896, then alone
Tom Emmett	England	3 September 1841	22 April 1899	30 June 1904
E M Grace	England	28 November 1841	30 June 1904	20 May 1911
James Lillywhite	England	23 February 1842	20 May 1911	25 October 1929
Francis MacKinnon	England	9 April 1848	25 October 1929	27 February 1947
Reginald Allen	Australia	2 July 1858	27 February 1947	2 May 1952
Kenny Burn	Australia	17 September 1862	2 May 1952	20 July 1956
Harry Donnan	Australia	12 November 1864	20 July 1956	13 August 1956
Audley Miller	England	19 October 1869	13 August 1956	26 June 1959
William Solomon	South Africa	23 April 1872	26 June 1959	12 July 1964
Sydney Barnes	England	19 April 1873	12 July 1964	26 December 1967
Wilfred Rhodes	England	29 October 1877	26 December 1967	8 July 1973
Plum Lewis	England	2 October 1884	8 July 1973	30 January 1976
Tiger Smith	England	6 February 6 1886	30 January 1976	31 August 1979
Andrew Sandham	England	6 July 1890	31 August 1979	20 April 1982
Jack MacBryan	England	22 July 1892	20 April 1982	14 July 1983
Percy Fender	England	22 August 1892	14 July 1983	15 June 1985
Stork Hendry	Australia	24 May 1895	15 June 1985	16 December 1988
Bill Ponsford	Australia	19 October 1900	16 December 1988	6 April 1991
Bob Wyatt	England	2 May 1901	6 April 1991	20 April 1995
Jack Newman	New Zealand	3 July 1902	20 April 1995	23 September 1996
Lionel Birkett	West Indies	14 April 1905	23 September 1996	16 January 1998
Alf Gover	England	29 February 1908	16 January 1998	7 October 2001
Lindsay Weir	New Zealand	2 June 1908	7 October 2001	31 October 2003
M J Gopalan	India	6 June 1906	31 October 2003	21 December 2003
Don Cleverley	New Zealand	23 December 1909	21 December 2003	16 February 2004
Eric Tindill	New Zealand	18 December 1910	16 February 2004	1 August 2010
Norman Gordon	South Africa	6 August 1911	1 August 2010

Oh! In the absence of a reliable source, I guess this just slide away into the archives. Pity. -- Ferma (talk) 20:36, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Nevill Ground

I've just listed Nevill Ground for peer review, could someone maybe give it a review? The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 18:57, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Someone knows their Wikipedia

This is brilliant. Of course it could never happen with a cricket article. :) JH (talk page) 10:39, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

List of batsmen who have scored over 10000 Test cricket runs

I've added a history section and some filler. --S.G.^(GH) _ping! 16:41, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Fine, though some of the stuff about what Boycott and Gooch might have done, though referenced, seems a bit unencyclopedic to me. Johnlp (talk) 17:35, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Request for dispute resolution on ODI match summary

I am involved in a dispute with User:Qantasplanes about the content of a match summary for the 4th ODI of the recent series between Australia and Sri Lanka. I am bringing this up here, at the recommendation of a 3rd Opinion, because I'm having difficulty getting Qantasplanes to engage in any sort of discussion.

The separate versions of the match report that each of us originally put forward are (excluding references):

Australia won the toss and chose to bat. Phillip Hughes (1) was dismissed in the 2nd over of the innings. Australia lost two quick wickets, that of Michael Clarke (20) and David Hussey (1). From there, Australia lost wickets at regular intervals. Australia managed to bat out the full 50 overs with Mitchell Starc (52*) and Xavier Doherty (10*) combining for the last wicket to raise the score to 222/9.

and

Australia won the toss and chose to bat. Sri Lanka reduced Australia to 3/53 in the 13th over, with Nuwan Kulasekara (3/30) taking two wickets and Lasith Malinga (2/33) taking one. Australia recovered to 4/125, largely through the batting of David Warner (60), but lost Warner and Moises Henriques in quick succession to collapse to 6/130 in the 32nd over; both batsmen were incorrectly given out leg before wicket after both edging the ball onto their pads, but Australia was unable to challenge the decisions with the DRS, having unsuccessfully challenged Michael Clarke's leg before wicket dismissal earlier in the innings. The Australian tail managed to survive to the end of fifty overs, and took the score to 9/222, with significant contributions from Mitchell Starc (52*) and Matthew Wade (31).

The latter paragraph is my attempt, and I think it fills the following gaps in the former:

Focusses on the strong performances with bat and ball, rather than highlighting sporadic weak (or in Doherty's case, unremarkable) batting performances.
Highlights the talking point around Australia having used its DRS, which was a significant talking point.
Better explains the pacing of the innings, by signposting a couple of the times in the innings that things occurred.

I'm hoping for the rest of you to help Qantasplanes and me reach a consensus on how this match summary should look. In particular, if there are guidelines within the project for what to include, that would be helpful. Aspirex (talk) 06:14, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm not too fussed about your actual dispute, but some of the proposed content in the second version breaches important things like WP:NPOV / WP:NOR / WP:PEACOCK, eg "both batsmen were incorrectly given out" and "significant contributions". --Dweller (talk) 20:39, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

For a moment I was a bit confused by the statement "Sri Lanka reduced Australia to 3/53 in the 13th over, with Nuwan Kulasekara (3/30) taking two wickets and Lasith Malinga (2/33) taking one". I gather the brackets are bowlers' final figures, but it jars oddly with the statement that Kulasekara took two wickets and Malinga one. Nev1 (talk) 22:38, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

I can't agree with you that there is any NPOV or NOR issue here; the reference (which I did not include in the post, but can be accessed here, and many other references make clear the fact that the lbws were incorrect. I'm also not convinced that it's a particularly strong case to invoke PEACOCK, but in any case that can be rectified by changing "managed to bat/survive" to "batted/survived", "significant contributions" to "top-scored", etc. However, none of this helps with the content dispute. Aspirex (talk) 03:59, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Talk:Sri_Lankan_cricket_team_in_Australia_in_2012–13#Discussion copied from User talk:Qantasplanes

Comments are invited. Formerip (talk) 14:32, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

First-class players without articles

I've just created six stubs for the following players: A. Boult (Middlesex cricketer); Z. Boult (Middlesex cricketer); Butterly (1787 cricketer); Gibbs (Middlesex cricketer); Jones Essex cricketer); and Oliver (Middlesex cricketer). These six are the last ones active in 1787 (the year both MCC and Lord's were founded) who did not have a WP article. That's the good news. The bad news is that I estimate from my own records that there are 254 first-class players of the period 1787 to 1825 who do not have WP articles and I don't think any of them are in Bobo's lists. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 20:44, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

I've put these players into Wikipedia:WikiProject Cricket/pre-1825 players which has a link from the to-do section above. If you are interested in helping, please remember that some of them could already have articles under non-obvious titles, especially amateurs with aristocratic titles. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 17:13, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Apologies, I'm late on the scene. I *believe* that none of the players on my lists predate 1801 - I know that, for certain, the lowest name on my Kent lists came from 1806, as this is the earliest year for which Kent's Cricket Archive subpage had a specific season list. I could attempt to put together a list of the players whose names appear in the first-class matches between 1773 and 1796, see if there *are* any missing, I wonder if there are any in those lists... Bobo . 00:47, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

In that case there will be overlap for a few counties between 1806 and 1825. Subject to some players having non-obvious article titles, the Wikipedia:WikiProject Cricket/pre-1825 players list complies with CA season summaries as well as my own records. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 07:14, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Category:Seasons in English cricket

Several sub-categories of Category:Seasons in English cricket, which are all within the scope of this WikiProject, have been nominated for renaming or upmerger.

If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the categories' entry on the Categories for discussion page. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:19, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi all. I recommend support for this proposal as it will help our categorisation system to get rid of numerous superfluous items.----Jack | ^{talk page} 07:10, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

See also: category:1993 in English cricket (and others). Nominated to remove superfluous and sometimes empty categories which will confuse the readers when trying to navigate the project. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 04:07, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Jack, that's a little disingenuous. The only reason that any of the nominated categories was empty was that you emptied them out of process instead of seeking a consenus to do so. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:54, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Will you get into your head that the categories became empty because I was tidying up a large number of articles which were out of synch with our categorisation structure. I did not "empty the categories". I worked on the articles to improve them for the benefit of our readers regardless of the inane and illogical RULES that apply on that ridiculous CfD page. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 10:41, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Jack, please try to be civil.

You did empty the categories. That is a matter of demonstrable fact. The reason you did so was that you think the categories should not exist. We disagree on that point, but we are both entitled to our views. And on Wikipedia we resolve disagreements by discussing them to try to reach a WP:CONSENSUS.

If you think that a category should not exist, for whatever reason, then the solution is to nominate them for merger or deletion, and seek a consensus. Unfortunately, you depopulated them first, which meant that the discussion you started at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013_February_15#Category:1993_in_English_cricket could not actually decide to keep them, because you had made their removal a fait accompli. That made the discussion pointless, and that's why I reverted.

If there is a consensus to remove them, then your edits can be reinstated. But let the discussion run its course, and then an uninvolved admin will decide whether there is a consensus. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:44, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Women's Cricket World Cup

Hi all - just a request to keep an eye on this article - people keep adding an entry for the non-existent final in 1973, no doubt due to the mistaken inclusion of it on several ICC press releases. Andrew nixon (talk) 16:26, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

All-England cricket teams

One to watch out for. When you refer to a non-international match involving an England team, please link to this article which was created specially for all those teams called England, England XI, All-England or The Rest which were not involved in a Test or LOI. The typical case is when a select XI plays against MCC or a county team and is called simply England. It is not the England national cricket team because it isn't playing internationally. Then there is the added complication that the generic term "All-England" has a specific entity too and for this we created William Clarke's All-England Eleven, the team that was colloquially known as the AEE.

Matches to be particularly aware of are in the early days before international cricket so please always link England in these cases to All-England cricket teams. Thanks. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 09:05, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Category:Scorer of a thousand first-class runs before the end of May

Category:Scorer of a thousand first-class runs before the end of May, which is within the scope of this WikiProject, has been nominated for deletion. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:07, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

A list might be better. -- Ferma (talk) 20:32, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for creating the list. JH (talk page) 09:25, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Irritating changes

The IP user 90.205.62.111 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) has made changes to quite a few articles where he/she has altered the height of people, mainly cricketers. A few users have reverted, and I've got the rest. At the very least they are unsourced, in the case of Curtly Ambrose they are demonstrably wrong, and I suspect the others are changed for the hilarity of it. Oh, the hilarity. If a few admin-ly types could keep an eye, that may be a good thing. I have left a warning on the talk page. Sarastro1 (talk) 18:56, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Category:One-Test wonders

This Cat name seems unnecessarily POV and unencyclopedic in tone. Which made me wonder whether a Cat for people who [have currently] played just one Test is a sufficiently notable intersection to deserve a Cat at all. Or perhaps, on the contrary, it's even notable enough for a list article? --Dweller (talk) 11:44, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Agree it's an odd category. Some of the players it's been bestowed on you wonder why they were never picked again (Ganteaume, Redmond, Marriott); others, you wonder why they were ever picked in the first place. It's a fairly frequently used cricket term, so I think it should be in the list of cricket verbiage, and maybe there should be a simple list that would cross-ref from there. But I'd happily delete it as a category. Johnlp (talk) 12:06, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

There is an article, One-Test wonder, which contained a list which was deleted in 2011 with the comment lists of one-test wonders seem a little unnecessary. -- Ferma (talk) 20:13, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

I think I would have kept the list and discarded the article! Johnlp (talk) 20:59, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

That article reeks of POV and OR. If someone can verify the terminology, at least, as Johnlp is arguing, a list would be NPOV. --Dweller (talk) 14:19, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Reeks? Steady on, Dwellers, old chap! You have read the cited sources, which include [8] [9] [10] [11] They establish usage of the term (and there are other examples in published books) and underpin at least some of the content. Some added context for other sports here. Looking at the article history further, I see another list was deleted in 2009. -- Ferma (talk) 18:03, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

I wasn't referring to the notability of the term, but to tracts of text like (to choose an example of POV and OR respectively) "Perhaps one of the most recent and surprising one test wonders is Darren Pattinson" and "More rarely, the term may refer to a player who has played in more than one Test". --Dweller (talk) 10:26, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

I think it "reeks" of one of those old Trivia sections that used to litter rather a lot of articles: all perfectly sourced, but the selection of material was in itself POV or OR. The thing about doing it as a table is that you can use a "notes" column to make some of these kinds of observation while preserving the essential factual nature of the rest of it. Maybe if I get a bit of time over the next few days I'll have a go in a sandbox... unless someone else wants to. Johnlp (talk) 11:27, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

A question of article titling

I'd be grateful if one or two or more of you would take a look at an titling issue I've brought up at Talk:John Bulmer. (I think it's a simple matter, one way or the other.) -- Hoary (talk) 01:56, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Now resolved; if anyone's interested, please see what was then Talk:John Bulmer but is now Talk:John Bulmer (cricketer). -- Hoary (talk) 12:19, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Category:International cricket competitions by year

Category:International cricket competitions by year, which is within the scope of this WikiProject, has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 10:26, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Portal:Sports is up for featured portal consideration

This is a courtesy message to inform the members of this project that I have nominated Portal:Sports for featured portal status. The discussion is at Wikipedia:Featured portal candidates/Portal:Sports. The featured portal criteria are at Wikipedia:Featured portal criteria. Please feel free to weigh in. Sven Manguard Wha? 18:33, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Bangladesh Premier League

Just came across Wikipedia:WikiProject Bangladesh Premier League through some of my watched pages. I'm not sure of the justification, and so was perusing WP:WikiProject, and I saw this:

"If your area fits neatly within an existing group with a larger scope (e.g., your favorite video game vs WP:WikiProject Video games), then please join that project, rather than starting yet another WikiProject.

If work on the subject requires so much discussion that it might overwhelm the larger, existing group, then your group can become a focused WP:Task force under that project. Task forces have all the benefits of regular projects, such as a dedicated talk page for discussion and article coordination, but many fewer administrative hassles.
It should go without saying that if your proposed project has a parent, you should discuss its potential creation on that parent project's talk page.
Many small, inactive WikiProjects were started before the task-force structure was formalized. Inactive groups with a limited topical scope should normally be turned into task forces of their "parent" WikiProject."

Any thoughts? Harrias ^talk 08:01, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Good luck trying to convince them to change while WP:IPL remains a standalone project. Hack (talk) 08:45, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

We should follow the example of WP:FOOTY, which has barely any sub-projects any more. WP:IPL and WP:BPL should be converted into task forces, subordinate to this Wikiproject. – Pee Jay 11:51, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

With the football sub-projects, there was an acknowledged link to a parent project. These are completely separate. Hack (talk) 11:56, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Our coverage of Bangladesh cricket isn't so hot. If this produces more and better coverage, then my view is that we should wish them well, while pointing out the benefits of linking to the broader project. Johnlp (talk) 12:01, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

There is an obvious link to the parent project in this case too. The IPL and the BPL are cricket competitions, therefore the WikiProjects covering those topics are subordinate to WP:CRICKET. I don't care if they set up WP:IPL and WP:BPL separately, they should be brought under the WP:CRICKET umbrella. – Pee Jay 12:44, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

LBW

Last year, there were a few news reports that the ICC (bless 'em) were going to alter their playing conditions to allow batsmen to be lbw to balls outside leg stump if the batsman had switched stance for the switch hit. I can find no further record of this, and the playing conditions for lbw seem to be the same. Does anyone know what happened? On a related note, I've been working on the lbw article with a view to FAC. If anyone wants to chip in here on anything missing from a cricket point of view, I'd be grateful. I'm also trying to get non-cricketers to look, to see how intelligible it is to those who don't have a clue what "pitched outside leg stump" means. Sarastro1 (talk) 22:15, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Nice article, but you are asking in the wrong place for non-cricketer reviews! I see it is a GA alread: may be worth mentioning at WT:FAC to see if you can get a pre-FAC review?

Surely your question is more of an issue for the Laws than the playing conditions: there is this MCC statement which looks rather old; and this World Cricket committee statement is much newer (27 February 2013): "The committee reaffirms its support of the switch-hit, on the back of considerable research by MCC into the shot and its potential repercussions. The difficulty and the high risk of playing the shot outweigh the need to legislate against it, either through banning it or amending the LBW Law when the shot is attempted."

And Steven Finn will have to correct his stump-breaking habit, or end up with lots more no-balls from this autumn. -- Ferma (talk) 23:10, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Oh, I'm trawling for non-cricketers too, don't worry! And the report I had in mind was this one. But I think you've answered the question, so thanks. Sarastro1 (talk) 23:20, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

"International cricket seasons"

Can you all please look at Talk:International cricket in 2011–12 to see an issue raised by PeeJay and myself after we discovered incorrect dating of tour articles because of misinformation generated by these articles which are based on a pseudo-concept for global seasons created by Cricinfo. I would seriously challenge the validity, let alone the usefulness of such articles, which certainly need extensive revision to say the least. What does everyone else think? ----Jack | ^{talk page} 16:26, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

I wouldn't say that Cricinfo was wrong, since we are now arguing that their seasons are correct (summer runs to the end of September, winter runs to the end of March). I would also argue that these articles are indeed useful, since they collate all international results into summary articles; the split into seasons may be contentious, but at least they provide a suitable point at which to draw a line between articles. The only issue here is that some tours are being incorrectly labelled, such as the West Indian cricket team in England in 2011–12 tour. – Pee Jay 17:27, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Isn't there an elephant in the room here - the naming of tours by two years when they take place only in one? We have English cricket team in New Zealand in 2012–13 when that tour takes place entirely within 2013. It's a nonsense. Andrew nixon (talk) 07:01, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Andrew - I totally agree. It's a nonsense. Good luck fighting the traditionalists on this one though. Trouble with the tradition is that with the rapid cycle of the modern game, it no longer makes sense. HiLo48 (talk) 07:14, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

I disagree. If we had "English cricket team in New Zealand in 2013" it would not be immediately clear whether that tour preceded or followed "New Zealand cricket team in England in 2013". With the current terminology there is no ambiguity. (Admittedly the current terminology can create ambiguity in other cases, but at least it's not when the same two sides successively play each other home and away.) JH (talk page) 10:09, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

That's a very rare example to use to justify an antiquated and now nonsensical policy. And the problem in that example is hardly a major one. HiLo48 (talk) 10:57, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

This is one of those issues where there isn't a good way forward. Both options are flawed. Personally, I think that the ease of intuitive understanding of chronological order, and the consistency given by the two year format overcomes the negative of the occasions when that is factually incorrect, like the current tour of NZ mentioned above. --Dweller (talk) 11:37, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

But isn't the current tour part of the 2012-13 New Zealand cricket season? There have been a couple of odd outlier tours in recent years, but in most cases, a tour is part of an identifiable domestic cricket season which, in New Zealand for sure, straddles the years. Johnlp (talk) 11:41, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

That's true, which strengthens my argument that it's the preferable option, but I do still see the downside of it remaining somewhat misleading (though like I say, I think it's outweighed). --Dweller (talk) 11:47, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Is the tour part of the 2012-13 New Zealand cricket season? Yes. Is it taking place in 2012-13? No. For an example from elsewhere see 2012 NBA Playoffs. Clearly part of the 2011-12 NBA season but not listed as 2011-12 NBA Playoffs because it doesn't take place in 2011-12, it takes place in 2012. Same goes for the 2012 FA Cup Final, which is part of the 2011-12 FA Cup. Andrew nixon (talk) 15:18, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Turning the clock back a few years to when we first discussed naming convention for tours and seasons, we did agree then that the format should include the host nation season so, complying with that, the current tour of NZ is in 2012–13 even though it occurs in 2013 only. The difficulty we found with the international season articles is inconsistency with overlaps between English April–September seasons and overseas ones which should be Oct–March but are sometimes given as Sept–March, hence certain articles being titled incorrectly (though we have corrected those now). ----Jack | ^{talk page} 15:35, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Except that the current tour isn't in 2012-13, it's in 2013. Part of the 2012-13 season, yes, but in 2013 only. See the NBA and FA Cup examples above. Andrew nixon (talk) 18:27, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm happy to rely on what Wisden does. Picking a random one off the pile (the 2011 edition), consecutive sections are titled "Pakistan v South Africa in the United Arab Emirates, 2010-11", with the last match finishing on 24 November 2010, and then "Pakistan A v England Lions in the United Arab Emirates, 2009-10" with the first match starting on 10 February 2010. Two series, two seasons, despite being the same year. If Wisden doesn't have a problem with it, then why should we? Johnlp (talk) 18:47, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Good point. Thou shalt not question the inerrancy of the bible of cricket, no matter how out of step with modern reality it may be. Andrew nixon (talk) 19:03, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

The single argument of the opponents of change is "It's always been done that way." Not a good one when the world has changed so much. (Short tours, speed of travel, etc.) Also very bad for trying to make this stuff comprehensible to non-aficionados, which is what an encyclopaedia is for. HiLo48 (talk) 22:22, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

But if Cricinfo, CricketArchive and Wisden all use the same format, so should we. Wikipedia should reflect common usage and conventions, not create its own. So I think we should definitely stick with using the season. Harrias ^talk 22:36, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

I think we have a consensus. --Dweller (talk) 22:40, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree completely with Harrias here: we should reflect and not create. Wisden has always followed this format, as do all cricketing reference works that I know of. I think everyone else has followed Wisden. Whether it is the best practice or not, and how comprehensible it is, is not for us to decide. We must follow the sources. The weird ones occur as Blackjack says, when "overseas" seasons clash with English ones, leading to the odd situation where a "2012-13" series can occur before the end of a "2012" series (I think Wisden created a new category of seasons to reflect this, where Sri Lankan seasons were just called XXXX, not XXXX-XX). In fact, I remember this very point coming up here not too long ago. And just to mess it up completely, it is not just Cricinfo which now has "global seasons". Wisden now works around (e.g.) the 2012 international season covering January to December... but has both 2011-12 and 2012-13 series within that framework. Sarastro1 (talk) 23:28, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

I repeat - "...very bad for trying to make this stuff comprehensible to non-aficionados, which is what an encyclopaedia is for. " By ignoring that point you reinforce your image as ultra-conservatives unwilling to think for yourselves. It's further reinforced when I point out that the reference works you so dearly feel the need to copy are all designed for people already versed in the weird and wonderful antique traditions of the game. Open your minds and open cricket to the world. HiLo48 (talk) 02:27, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Per my post below, I was just about to create the Australian cricket team in Bangladesh in 2010–11 article, but I couldn't find it listed under the 2010-11 archive on Cricinfo; it seems they deem it to be a 2011 tour, whereas CricketArchive, where we appear to have got our date from, lists it as 2010-11. Since I usually deem April to be part of the summer season, I would treat the tour as a summer tour and move it to Australian cricket team in Bangladesh in 2011, but I dunno. – Pee Jay 00:32, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

I've removed my comments above as I think they're rather unfair. However, I still feel that these articles are titled incorrectly, for the following reasons:

WP:COMMONNAME Yes, these tours are listed as two years on certain websites - but they aren't on others. See the page on the England tour of New Zealand on the ECB website. The various groups that run tours for England supporters also refer to it as just 2013, as I think the average person would also do. Other full members also don't always refer to tours as spanning two years.
Just because an event is part of a season doesn't mean that the event should inherit the season in its title. See my examples above of the 2012 NBA Playoffs and 2012 FA Cup Final, which were both part of a 2011-12 season.
The old season structure doesn't really exist so far as international cricket goes. Sri Lanka and the West Indies will now often play in June/July. The USA has hosted events as late as November in recent years.
Concerns over it being clear what event follows another don't really make sense. If two tours take place in the same season, does that not also apply?

I am, of course, happy to bow to consensus, but reasons along the lines of "Wisden do it, so should we" don't really wash with me. Andrew nixon (talk) 13:28, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

One thing I've been doing if the article is "A team in B in ccyy–yy" is to ensure that the "ccyy in wherever" categories reflect the year in which the tour took place. So if a tour took place in the 2012–13 season but started after the new year, I only put it in the "2013 in wherever" category, not in "2012 in wherever". If it spanned both years then it goes in both categories. This obviously isn't the same as using the season in the article title but at least it ensures correct categorisation. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 16:38, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

There's also scope to set up redirects to assist people in finding the article they are looking for, of course. JH (talk page) 18:13, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Cricket/redlink tours

I've just updated this list which is part of our To–Do section above. If you're interested in kicking off some tour review articles, the ones we need are listed here. Please just crib from an existing one to get started. There are many more yet but so far I've concentrated on those tours which featured Tests or which have particular historical interest. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 14:05, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

I've had English cricket team in West Indies in 1947-48 and English cricket team in West Indies in 1967-68 on my to-do list for about two or three years. I'm afraid there's little chance of my getting round to them any time soon, so if anyone else would like to take them on please feel free. (The titles are currently both redirects to a general article on cricket in the WI post WW2 up until 1970.) The second of those two tours was particularly noteworthy, featuring a riot and an unexpected England series win thanks to a Sobers declaration. JH (talk page) 18:36, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Two of the Pakistan/Australia ones just needed redirected to an article with a slightly different dash in the title (I don't know which dash is the preferred one, but I've redirected them to the existing article.) S.G.^(GH) _ping! 18:37, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

We adopted the ndash (–) yonks ago. I don't know why as it is tiresome when editing but I suppose it looks better than the hyphen. :–) ----Jack | ^{talk page} 19:16, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Out of interest, what do we do with tours where Cricinfo and CricketArchive can't seem to agree on what season the tour took place in? I was just about to start the Australian cricket team in Bangladesh in 2010–11 article, but Cricinfo is calling it a 2011 tour, while CricketArchive calls it 2010–11. If it helps, it took place in April 2011, so I would say it's a 2011 tour. – Pee Jay 00:26, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

No debate here. Was any part of the tour in 2010? No, so it goes in 2011. Andrew nixon (talk) 06:49, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

If it helps, Wisden calls it 2010–11. Harrias ^talk 07:36, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Is that from the 2011 edition of Wisden? – Pee Jay 08:33, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

From Cricketarchive, the series of major matches that constitute the Bangladeshi domestic season 2010-11 started in October 2010 and finished in May 2011, so the brief Australian tour in April 2011 is inside that; the next Bangladeshi season started in September 2011 and finished in April 2012, although only three FC matches were in 2012 and only three Twenty20 matches were in 2011 (List A was split more evenly). Johnlp (talk) 09:40, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Murray Hofmeyr

Murray Hofmeyr played first-class cricket for Oxford University and international rugby union for England, and was South African born. But is he still alive? ESPNcricinfo has him living still, but ESPNscrum, the rugby equivalent, has him expiring in 1990, aged 64. Is there anyone with access to South African sources that might clear this up? Johnlp (talk) 23:31, 10 March 2013 (UTC) PS. ESPNscrum spells his name "Hofmeyer" which is wrong.

Still alive according to CricketArchive. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 14:51, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it's only the rugby site that has him as the late Murray, but as he was a somewhat more distinguished rugby player than cricketer, it's possible they know things that others don't. (Though they don't know how to spell his name.) I can find no recent mentions of him. Johnlp (talk) 15:55, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

ANI discussion

With some reluctance, I have taken some of the issues raised here to ANI. Anyone is invited to comment there. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:18, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

An academic project about cricket currently underway

Just letting this project know that there is an educational project underway - WP:WikiProject Cricket and Englishness. Note that as an academic project it has a definite end date. The students involved are required to create articles for which they will be graded. Help them but be gentle, most of them are complete newbies to WP and cricket too - the project is being run by an American college. Roger (talk) 14:48, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

And there are serious issues about the sources they are using as this is causing disruption to some of our articles, which we are bound to protect as they are pieces of work created for the benefit of the readers and not some trial process. Why can't the educational project use sandboxes only as new users who are experimenting are asked to do? ----Jack | ^{talk page} 17:00, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Mostly, because they're not experimenting. The goal of the class (and the goal of almost all classes that edit Wikipedia) is to improve Wikipedia articles in a meaningful way, not to just fuck around. Not all classes universally succeed in improving the encyclopedia, but many class projects have made significantly positive contributions to Wikipedia. Most of this article was written by a student as a class project, as was this one - I don't think you can put either of those in the same realm as the 'how can I edit' sandbox experimentation new users are directed towards. New student editors are never perfect, but no new editor is. Kevin Gorman (talk) 01:24, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

And how do they improve our articles when they use a single source only that one expert has described as "risible", another has described as "unreliable" and a third has expressed strong doubts about it? Especially when that source is completely at odds with the established consensus of recognised authorities and begins with a peripheral theory widely denounced as crackpot? ----Jack | ^{talk page} 21:55, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

History of cricket (1726–40)

Hi, in view of the recent dispute about this page which received attention from the Englishness and Cricket students, can some of you please review the latest changes and report your findings on the article talk page. You especially need to be satisfied that certain errors and falsehoods were introduced (albeit in good faith) and that these have now, as best as you can tell, been addressed. Re the 1727 "rules", you might wish to refer to Articles of Agreement (cricket). Any additional recommendations for improving the article will be welcome as it's nowhere near complete. Thanks very much. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 14:10, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Ellis Child and Murray Child

Hello. Those articles were created by an IP address on relevant talk pages. I've moved them to the main space as I think the content might be useful for this project. Could anyone familiar with cricket check out whether they meet our notability requirements? Thank you. --Vejvančický (talk / contribs) 16:06, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, they're both notable under WP:CRIN and WP:ATH. Need a bit of tidying, maybe, but they're a start. Thanks. Johnlp (talk) 16:18, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Cool. Thank you for the review, Johnlp. --Vejvančický (talk / contribs) 16:26, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Top Priority Pages

We currently have [| six sections] that are rated "top priority" but are currently ranked as only start class. This really needs sorting out.

Can we have a concerted effort to inspect these pages, identify the weaknesses in the relevant talk pages, and get them up to at least C standard if not B.

Py0alb (talk) 10:42, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

How to beat orphan tagging

If you create a new biography for a player who didn't appear often, you'll almost certainly see an orphan tag applied. A good way to beat this is to go to the season review for the player's debut season and include him in that as a debutant. Simples! ----Jack | ^{talk page} 17:15, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Orphan tagging isn't really something to be 'beaten'. Sometimes there will simply be very few articles linking in because there aren't many which are relevant. It happens. The tag isn't something to be feared or dodged, it's a reminder that we can help readers by adding links where appropriate so they can find more information. If you're struggling to find appropriate articles to link to a new article, remove the tag and don't worry about it. Linking from the season is a good idea, but that would surely only work for articles on English players. Nev1 (talk) 19:50, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Just like to pint out that when quickly glancing through my watchlist I thought the heading of this was "How to beat orphans" and wondered what on earth BlackJack was up to. --Roisterer (talk) 04:43, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

----Jack | ^{talk page} 06:06, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

A particular late England cricketer comes to mind. Hack (talk) 07:58, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

In all honesty, if it were up to me, the concept of there being orphans on any cricket related topic could be easily solved by having articles with such titles as List of Derbyshire County Cricket Club players - currently situated, and incomplete, at List of Derbyshire CCC players... but for as many cricket teams as we can possibly muster - inside and outside of English County Championship teams. Their first-class/list A status would be in no doubt, as that would be the cut-off level for mention in the list articles. I know lists are, in some way, considered a bad thing, but at least this would even out the playing field in terms of notability. This would, at the same time, clear up the issue of redlinks.

After all, this was the primary reason I wrote my first-class players lists, because I knew that each name on that list would, by well-established guidelines, be allowed a Wikipedia article. Bobo . 19:51, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

There are now "List of Fooshire CCC players" articles for all the English counties, and Hampshire and Somerset are complete and up-to-date with no redlinks, while Essex, Gloucestershire, Leicestershire and Warwickshire are complete and up-to-date but with many redlinks. Some are closer to completeness than others. Quite a lot of articles have been de-orphaned through this exercise, many by Harrias. Johnlp (talk) 23:26, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

My mistake - I hadn't intended to imply these list articles were *missing* - just that those which are not first-class teams, and those outside of the United Kingdom, should also be afforded the same treatment. Apologies if it seemed like I was overlooking something when that wasn't my intention. Bobo . 01:41, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

One of the problems with List of Fooshire CCC players is length so I would suggest the lists per county are split into, for example, List of Fooshire CCC players to 1914, List of Fooshire CCC players (1919–45), etc. As per AA's model for Hampshire, of course. Obviously there would be overlaps and long-serving players like Grace, Rhodes, Hobbs, etc. would be in more than one list.

A second problem, which relates to Sussex, Kent, Surrey, Hampshire, Middlesex and Essex mostly, is that these counties were first-class long before they had a county club so additional lists would be needed such as List of Sussex cricketers (1787–1838). All players who debuted before Lord's and MCC were founded are in List of early English cricketers to 1786 (which, incidentally, is now finally complete unless anyone has slipped through the net) but there was considerable activity in the half-century between MCC and Sussex CCC – many well-known Sussex players did not belong to Sussex County Cricket Club but to Sussex county cricket teams. The 1701–86 list ensures that none of the pre-MCC players are orphaned.

I agree with Bobo that such lists are useful and the concept should be extended both globally and also, within the UK, to what can be termed "occasional teams" as there are numerous players whose first-class career amounted to a single appearance for Lord Snooty's XI. And then there is MCC whose players were either club members or those from county clubs who were either guests or groundstaff – nightmare. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 05:30, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

I've created List of English cricketers (1787–1825). Not perfect by any means but it is a complete list of names albeit in article title format. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 09:07, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

(I hope I've indented this appropriately): BlackJack, the team names on my index list should be pretty self-explanatory - are there any significant teams I am missing whose players I can list? I know for example I haven't tackled Durham List A matches pre-1992, but that's the only example I can think of within England. I think I'm missing Australian first-class teams... South Africa? India, I know I've gone through Mihir Bose's list of first-class teams, and updated them appropriately. New Zealand? Bobo . 21:41, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

That's good to get some more lists going. Not sure I agree with the "splitting" argument: if you look at the Somerset or the Warwickshire lists, they don't seem quite as unwieldy when they're divided by initial letters, and there's perhaps a benefit in having all the info in one place. Some of the Australian state teams have similar lists, but in more tabular format and by order of debut rather than by name (I did Tasmania a year or so ago). As WP is not paper, it might not be unreasonable to have comprehensive lists ordered by name and separated lists ordered by debut. I don't think there's an easy answer to the early teams problem. Johnlp (talk) 09:27, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Category:One-Test wonders

I really don't see the point of such a category but it has acquired 160-odd entries already. It has been renamed from an unhyphenated version by the usual suspects at CfD but otherwise I can't see who originated it. Thoughts? ----Jack | ^{talk page} 19:22, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Commendations on the cute title, whoever thought of it - but "wonders" is a subjective term, and grouping people together who only made one Test appearance is just as subjective as grouping those together who have appeared in... exactly 23 Tests. As it says even in the article itself: "More rarely, the term may refer to a player who has played in more than one Test, but was very successful only once." This makes the very inclusion into this category somewhat woolly even if we retain the "wonders" tag.

I've already offered my opinion. If Wikipedia were my own, there would be a separate category for people who have appeared in one Test, two Tests... 194 Tests. Just for tidiness's sake, you know. As long as we support it with the subjective term "wonder", at least it would make a cute category title... Bobo . 00:07, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Indeedie! Although I normally wouldn't touch CfD with the proverbial bargepole, I've opened a discussion here and pinched some of Bobo's points. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 11:03, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Heads up

I received a question this morning which could result in an eventual discussion about the notability of our, shall we say WP:PERMASTUB articles. I have of course explained that people who played in first-class matches, or who are otherwise significant and can be verified as such, should be accorded articles in terms of WP:CRIN and sitewide guidelines on notability as we currently understand them. It seems to me, though, that this point about permanent stubs may be the precursor to a new notability approach. Please see my discussion thus far with the enquirer. This prompted me to look at CRIN per the thread below. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 10:52, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

WP:CRIN

It's a long time since anyone made any revision to this guideline and I think some overdue attention was needed. One glaring omission was no specific mention of individual matches played outwith formal competitions. Another issue was no mention of CricketArchive (CA) which is in effect this project's default for deciding what is "first-class" and what is not. This approach is misguided because it ignores other sources more substantial than CA and must be counter-productive when CA is wrong (which it sometimes is) or it does not hold certain information (which happens) or its subjective view of a match's status is questionable (which also happens). The key point, I think, is that an editor does not have to use CA if information can be verified by reference to another (more?) substantial source, although differences between sources should be mentioned if they are noticed. Please read the revised guideline and either amend or discuss here as necessary. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 10:39, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Cricket/pre-1825 players

I've been working through this list to give each entry a link and I've created stubs for all the players who made their debuts up to 1800. The list now has 176 players who made their debut (mostly their sole appearance) between 1801 and 1825. Some of them may be in Bobo's lists too. Many of them are questionable in terms of first-class status as the CricketArchive classifications in this period are debatable, especially when you look at certain matches which are "not first-class".

Included in the list are William Hall Gage, William Lascelles, John Duncan Bligh, George Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 2nd Duke of Sutherland and George Spencer-Churchill, 6th Duke of Marlborough who all played first-class cricket before going on to greater(?) things and these articles need to be expanded to include the cricket information. Another one to be looked at is Paul Methuen, 1st Baron Methuen who may have played a game for MCC in 1816. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 20:56, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Methuen is the same man. Article updated. He got a pair in his only game. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 21:18, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

I've renamed this list Wikipedia:WikiProject Cricket/19th century players as all the players active in the first quarter now have articles. I'm populating the list with debutants per season starting with about twenty in 1826 who are still redlinks. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 18:33, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

"One-Test wonders" revisited

Following on from Jack's discussion of 29 March 2013 on this page about deleting the Category:One-Test wonders, he suggested on my talk page that I open up a discussion about whether the information should be presented as a list instead. My view is that the category should be deleted as per the proposal, but I believe that a list of the cricketers who have played a single Test should remain as a list on the one-Test wonder article. A quick Google will show that the term "one-Test wonder" has been widely used for many years in both the UK and Australia to describe cricketers with a single Test cap: there are several ESPNcricinfo online articles on one-Test wonders from various countries, there is a book by Roderick Easdale published in 1999 titled "England's One-Test Wonders", and following Ian Blackwell's retirement to become the latest permanent addition to the club the Daily Mail published an article as recently as 19 March reviewing past "one-cap wonders". In my view this shows that there is a continuing interest in these "one-off" players and a complete list of them would be notable enough for inclusion on Wikipedia - particularly as Wikipedia already features what in my view are far more obscure cricketing lists, such as list of Jamaica women ODI cricketers and list of cricketers called for throwing in top-class cricket matches in Australia.

I have stated my views on Jack's CfD proposal but will repeat them here for those who have not seen them. Jack and Bobo have correctly said that the term "wonders" is subjective, but in this case "one-Test wonder" does not refer to any particularly outstanding feat by a player, merely that it is the commonly used term for players who have only played a single Test match, in the same way that "one-hit wonder" refers to a song that is the only hit record (often a no. 1) by a musical artist, regardless of the song's qualities - for example, I doubt that any (sane) British person reading this will argue that the Teletubbies' sole hit is a milestone in musical history, but it is nevertheless classified as a "one-hit wonder".

Bobo notes that the definition of a "one-Test wonder" is not fixed - this is also true of a one-hit wonder. Jack has suggested that both the list and the Wikipedia article be renamed to something like "List of cricketers with a single Test appearance", which seems a reasonable suggestion to me, and which would eliminate the question of subjectivity surrounding the use of the word "wonders". Would welcome any discussion on this subject. Richard3120 (talk) 06:28, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm certain that there *needs* to be an article about cricketers with a single Test appearance, but that the information presented as it was in the original article was useless to the casual reader - if there's anyone who follows baseball on this page, they will be all too aware of what happened yesterday in Major League Baseball, with Yu Darvish posting a near-perfect game - my point being, if there wasn't a page on List of Major League Baseball perfect games, hardcore baseball fans would be wondering where it had disappeared to.

A little aside - when I met John Otway, he stated that he was very aggrieved that, at a time when he'd had only one single on the UK singles chart, "Cor Baby That's Really Free", reaching number 27 - that they'd made a typographical error - they'd included an "S" at the end of his "Greatest Hits" album - when he had, in fact, only had one hit. Naturally, when the repackaged the Greatest Hits in 2002, after he'd had his second single in the charts, he was finally pleased that they'd got the title of the album correct!

Incidentally, one of the most amusing days of my life - his energy and silly anecdotes, including the one where he almost destroyed the Top of the Pops set, were some of my favourite celebrity anecdotes I've ever heard! ;)

Oh, and the disco remix of the Teletubbies theme is one of the more bizarre songs I've *ever* heard... sorry, back to topic now! ;) Bobo . 15:38, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Ha ha, I saw Otway a couple of years ago at the Putney Half Moon, I'm sure he spent more time telling his anecdotes rather than singing the songs... :-)

Somehow, no thanks to myself, this thread has turned into talking about absolutely nothing to do with cricket... sorry about that! ;) Bobo . 20:38, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I totally understand why Jack wants to delete the category - all it does is redirect to a long list of 400-odd names with no context whatsoever. Similarly I completely agree with your argument that the current article provides nothing of useful information. My feeling is that improving and combining the article with a full list would address both these issues, as you could then pick out players of significance from the list and explain briefly why (for example) Andy Ganteaume and Rodney Redmond both scored centuries on Test debut but were never picked again. Richard3120 (talk) 16:32, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Billy Frank

FAO Jack or anyone else involved in creating the stub articles of Test players. The article about the player Billy Frank was hijacked last year by a similarly named US film producer to promote himself - he did the same thing for his production company and I have put up an AfD request here (please feel free to vote for or against the proposal!). I have left the Billy Frank article in its current hijacked state for now so that you can view it and make the necessary alterations - I didn't want to do it myself because I wasn't sure what (if anything) of the original article had been removed. One thing I did do was restore the original categories, which had been replaced by Category:American film producers and the like. This surely constitutes vandalism, and you might want to consider putting a 'registered user only' lock on the article to prevent him attempting it again. Richard3120 (talk) 16:48, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I've reverted Billy Frank back to where it was before it was vandalised, and cut and pasted the offending copy into a new article called Billy Frank (producer), which immediately attracted a bot that suggests it was in any case plagiarised. Might be worth keeping an eye on both. Johnlp (talk) 17:30, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks - I had considered doing exactly that and creating a new article under that very name, but I just didn't see the point as it was so obviously self-promotion: three of the references are from biographies that were in all probability provided by Mr Frank himself (including his own website), and the fourth is from a blog of debatable notability. Still, this is not the problem of Wikiproject Cricket any more, I'll leave it for the bot or someone else to sort out. Richard3120 (talk) 17:51, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

It looks like the bot is confused, as the page that it's supposedly plagiarised from clearly says that the content comes from Wkipedia! JH (talk page) 21:13, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Probably should have got an admin to do a history split, rather than a cut paste. The bot detects duplication, not plagiarism. Could be a bit smarter, though. The-Pope (talk) 06:03, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

I know, I know. But the whole thing reads like a bit of self-publicity, and I don't care a lot if the material disappears. An alternative would have been just to junk the intruding copy entirely by reverting back to the last clean copy of the cricketer article. Johnlp (talk) 09:04, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dipayan Paul

Views welcome! Howzat?Out!Out!Out! (talk) 16:58, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Quality of Kevin Pietersen

I was recently reading through our article on KP for one reason or another (I have no idea why..) and was substantially disappointed with the quality of this "Featured article". I have left a few comments on the talk page, and hopefully someone will take on improving this article so that it can retain its featured status, otherwise I think it best for it to be stripped of the star; it certainly isn't among the best article on Wikipedia at the moment! Harrias ^talk 15:47, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

The article was promoted a long time ago (6 years!) and as is usual with these things has degenerated over time, the more so because he is both active today and high profile. Look how it was when it was promoted. --Dweller (talk) 10:34, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Oh how witty, let's change the heights

We have a couple of IPs going around changing the height of cricketers in their infoboxes again; only by an inch or even less. While this is obviously very entertaining and productive for them, I think it needs watching as they are quite subtle changes that are easily missed. Apart from poor old Curtly Ambrose, it seems to be IPL cricketers who are suffering. Worth keeping an eye on them, especially any passing admins. Sarastro1 (talk) 16:49, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Might have to give it ago myself, obviously highly entertaining! Ah, how the vandals have fallen somewhat! Howzat?Out!Out!Out! (talk) 16:57, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

The comedian seems to be using different IP addresses. (Hmm, here I am with some spare time. I know, I'll change the heights of some cricketers. Oh, the fiendish cunning. Aren't I a genius?) Steven Finn (cricketer) is the latest target. If it continues, and no admin-y people come by, I'll report it to wherever you are supposed to report these things.Sarastro1 (talk) 21:25, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

That's WP:ANI though you may have to use a subpage. It depends on the exact nature of the complaint. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 07:45, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

WP:AIV is what you'd want I think. S.G.^(GH) _ping! 10:10, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Caps

Resolved

Hi! Can somebody correct the number of caps in the infobox of the article Yuvraj Singh? Also, Cap (sport)#Cricket says Sachin has 463 ODI caps, but the article on him says 74. Thanks for your help···Vanischenu^「m/_Talk」 21:30, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

That refers to his cap number, he is the 74th player to represent India in ODI cricket. S.G.^(GH) _ping! 00:34, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you so much; both for the answer and the corrections made.···Vanischenu^「m/_Talk」 12:32, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

List of English cricketers (1826–1840)

I've created this article which is a complete list of the names of players who were active from 1826 to 1840, though many of the names still have to be formatted for WP. There are about 730 players and it looks as if more than half will be redlinked when all the titles are defined. We have an article for every significant player who was active before 1826 so this is the point at which the redlinks begin. If you are able to pick up some of these names and develop articles for them, that will help us towards our goal of an article for every first-class player. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 16:07, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Left-handers

Can anyone name a bunch of Edwardian cricketers from the north of England, who were left-handed batsmen and/or bowlers? Please visit this quirky question at the Ref Desk.

And while I'm at it, is there a good reason why we don't subcategorise bowlers and batsmen by left/right handers? Do any other sports do this? --Dweller (talk) 21:29, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Only folks I would have expected to differentiate would have been the baseball crew, but they only have Category:Baseball pitchers albeit with "knuckleball" and "screwball" pitchers, but I don't think they're necessarily one or the other-handed. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:36, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

I would have thought a major difficulty of trying to categorise left-handers/right-handers is that many players bat one way and bowl another, so you'd need four separate categories for "left-handed batsmen"/"left-handed bowlers"/"right-handed batsmen"/"right-handed bowlers" rather than just two categories for "left-handed cricketers" and "right-handed cricketers", which would get a bit messy. It used to be that left-handers bowled with their natural left hand but were often schooled to bat right-handed, e.g. John Lever. More recently, however, it's become more common to have right-handed bowlers who bat left-handed: the current England team has two such players in James Anderson and Stuart Broad, but I can also think of Richard Hadlee, Graham Dilley and Curtley Ambrose off the top of my head. I believe there are some batsmen on the English county circuit who are naturally right-handed but who have taught themselves to bat left-handed in order to counteract spin bowlers. So all in all I guess it's quite difficult to categorise players by "handedness". Richard3120 (talk) 21:48, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

A perfect summary. If I may indulge myself, I'm a right-footed footballer, who plays left wing/midfield, a right-handed swing bowler but a left-handed snooker and pool player. Gadzooks. Apart from the lack of international success, I think I demonstrate what Richard above has said...! The Rambling Man (talk) 21:51, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Harry Dean (cricketer) played for Lancashire and England and batted and bowled left-handed, Jack Sharp also played for Lancashire and England, and bowled left-handed, though he batted right-handed. A number of players in southern-based counties who played for England were left-handed, and if the search extends beyond England players and the time-frame opened a little, there are lots of left-handers. I would suggest that there were perhaps a smaller percentage then than now, but there were still plenty around. Wilfred Rhodes is another who bowled left-handed and batted right. Tom Emmett, who played in the very first Test match was a Yorkshire player who batted and bowled left-handed. So it clearly was not a taboo. Harrias ^talk 21:53, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Just for something different, I recently came across a cricketer who bowled right-handed but threw left-handed. Hack (talk) 01:49, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

To quote Stephen Fry - I'm "ambisinistrous" - completely rubbish with both hands! Bobo . 12:16, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Cricketers almost invariably bowl with their naturally stronger hand. Batting, being a two handed discipline, is more flexible. Py0alb (talk) 12:29, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

I recall hearing or reading somewhere that David Gower reckoned himself to be essentially right-handed, but that batting left-handed enabled him to use his left hand for its power and his right hand for its deftness and control. Johnlp (talk) 13:57, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Brian Close batted lefthanded, bowled righthanded, caught with either hand and, just for variety, could head the ball straight into the safe hands of Phil Sharpe. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 20:08, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Keegan Meth

Congratulations to him on his Test debut and commiserations on his Cricinfo photograph. Unless he likes to look like that. In which case, supply your own punchline involving the word "hair" and his surname. --Dweller (talk) 12:12, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

In the bathroom, never place a bottle of meths next to one of shampoo. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 13:13, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

New article created about Julian Thompson (cricketer)

Dunno who monitors the Kent redlinks, but this chap may not have showed up because of a soldier squatting on the main Julian Thompson page. This chap was one of my heroes when I were a lad, mixing his medical career and a spectacularly successful series of short seasons for Kent. If anyone can find me some RS praising him, eg for his remarkably low average, that'd be great. His figures imply he had some serious talent. --Dweller (talk) 22:30, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Category:2009 in New Zealand cricket

Category:2009 in New Zealand cricket, which is within the scope of this WikiProject, has been nominated for deletion. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:28, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

I'd be grateful for some input from others, even if to say I've got it all wrong, in a reasoned manner. --Dweller (talk) 22:27, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Six sixes in an over....

Only the fifth time ever in pro cricket, and the first by an Englishman....... The Rambling Man (talk) 16:13, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Obviously a fine achievement, but since it was in a second XI match I don't think it should be given the same weight as the other four occurrences. JH (talk page) 17:13, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, that's interesting, the BBC reporting it as a professional game, yet a second XI game... So what is professional about a second XI game – is that all of the players are paid? The Rambling Man (talk) 17:15, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Yep. It's basically the reserve side, containing mostly young hopefuls from the county's staff along with a few senior players who can't currently make the first team. JH (talk page) 18:19, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

The fact that he did it against Yorkshire will make all redblooded Lancastrians think it's the most notable occurrence of all. Incidentally, another Englishman made his maiden first-class century today, off 55 balls. --Dweller (talk) 18:03, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Counts in my book as Jordan Clark and Gurman Randhawa have contracts with Lancs and Yorkshire respectively. Sure not first-class, but professional if you want to press the point ;-) Nev1 (talk) 18:11, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Chris Gayle

I've just put something in there about his cardiac arrhythmia (surprised it wasn't in there!) but was thinking. Did we actually make a ruling regarding T20 stats in the infobox? Because they'll never be a player for whom T20 stats are more relevant... S.G.^(GH) _ping! 11:14, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

This has been discussed quite a few times in the archive. The decision to have at most four columns of player statistics was made a long time ago (I think this the discussion, in 2007; previously I think the standard was two columns, either Test and ODI, or First-class and List A). Perhaps it is time to revisit it again, as T20 becomes a more established format and shows little sign of diminishing.

There is some relevant discussion here (see a six-column example from 2009 here) and here (and under the next heading too, including a couple of examples with collapsible sections in 2010). For what it is worth, I think the six-column example looks ok, but I prefer the collapsible format.

Some might might raise the subject of accessibility, but last time I looked the MOS allows collapsible cells or sections in tables for detailed information like this that should be summarised in the article already, and some people support almost total collapse of infobox content for some articles (see the recent debate here). Template:Infobox video game has had an option for collapsing most of its content for nearly 5 years without much complaint! -- Ferma (talk) 17:19, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps we should be thinking about taking the comprehensive stats out of the infobox. The infobox should really a snapshot of the person and their achievements, not everything they've ever done on a professional cricket field. Hack (talk) 00:37, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

We could have a "stats" box elsewhere in the article? S.G.^(GH) _ping! 07:38, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

I think the infobox is the place to put stats, and I hope we don't need a separate box elsewhere. If someone can make a foldaway version to include T20 and T20I, then fine. Stats of relevance to T20 don't absolutely coincide with the stats generally collected in other forms of cricket: batsmen's strike rates and bowlers' economy rates may be more germane than batting or bowling averages. That's why, if we can only accommodate four columns, those are the ones in my view to leave out. Surely the main article is the place to present a true and rounded picture (a snapshot or hopefully longer) of the person and their main achievements, properly referenced. Too many of our articles are mere restatements of statistical data that is actually more easily accessed and better presented in the infobox. Johnlp (talk) 08:01, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Template:Cr-Eng

I just came across this template, and have nominated it for deletion here, as it uses the county flags, rather than the County Cricket Club flags. Thoughts appreciated at the discussion. Harrias ^talk 06:40, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

First class cricketer up for deletion

Mark Davies (cricketer, born 1959). Debate is here. Cricket Archive stats for this Mark Davies are here. Justification behind birth-year disambiguation is here. Bobo . 17:03, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

I've just come back from holiday and I missed a fascinating debate about this guy. The question I have is: does everyone agree with WP:CRIN as it's currently written, including the above proposal re the WCL? ----Jack | ^{talk page} 10:34, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Not really. But it's difficult. WP:CRIN is supposed to set a guideline for inclusion. But that guideline should be set on the basis of notability. So in theory, a player who meets CRIN, can be assumed to meet GNG. At the moment, I don't think this is necessarily the case. We have lots of articles (and I have created and written many myself) on players who have played only one or two matches, and done nothing of much note in those matches. CRIN suggests that they are notable, but in reality, it is likely that for many of these players all that exists are trivial mentions in scorecards and the such. In these cases, the GNG would suggest that they are not notable, and as such, CRIN should really reflect this as well. All that said, I don't really know what to suggest as an alternative. Do we change it to, say, 10 (major) matches, but allow less appearances if the player scored a half-century / five-wicket haul or more? (For example.) There would always have to be a caveat allowing less appearances in exceptional circumstances, but that is nothing unusual. With regards to international players, to be honest, I think the WCL already goes too far; they might be international players, but they are playing at a significantly inferior level to most domestic cricket, but that is only my opinion. Harrias ^talk 10:57, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I agree it's difficult but I think our primary concern is to avoid subjectivity, though to some extent we are failing re past editions of WCL. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 11:01, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

I have much sympathy with the view that someone who has played only a single f-c match and achieved nothing much is not notable, and would personally never bother creating an article for such a player. But the difficulty comes when one tries to come up with something better. Either you have to have criteria that lack the current one's virtue of simplicity or else criteria that are if anything even more arbitrary. (10 matches seems to me more arbitrary than one, for instance.) JH (talk page) 17:07, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

I think the single-match criterion is probably the clearest and least subjective place to draw the line and I think also that we're as a group pretty good and consistent at enforcing the rule for people who don't qualify (witness recent AfDs on each side). If you run through the inclusion lists at WP:ATH for other sports, we're pretty much in line with several others (soccer, Rugby league, most American sports), and I think we're much better at enforcing the rule than, say, Association football seems to be. Like Harrias, I worry more about WCL, but frankly we don't really know what the standards were in the dim-and-distant past (or in Oxford University v Free Foresters in the 1960s) either, and I'm generally inclined to be inclusionist where possible. Johnlp (talk) 23:35, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

I know this isn't strictly true, but the beautiful thing about this is how easy it is to see whether or not a first-class/List A cricketer passes the notability criteria for an article. Whereas, with soccer, this is pretty much impossible with free, online sources. If your Uncle said, "Yeah, I appeared in a game in the 1960s opposite Wilf Flangleberry", you're inclined to believe him because you have no way of proving it.

Alec Douglas-Home is the only example I can think of... imagine if someone put up ADH's article for deletion on WP (I know it's stupid but stay with me). The argument of those outside the cricketing fraternity would be, "Notable politician, Prime Minister of country", while we could say, "Keep, has first-class cricketing appearances". As it stands, both arguments are equally as valid. Whereas, if Manchester City goalkeeper Joe Hart had never become a footballer, his only qualification for inclusion/exclusion could be his cricketing appearances - for which, if someone created an article on him, it would be deleted on current criteria. (None at FC or List A level).

On the other side of the coin, former Shrewsbury Town goalkeeper Steve Ogrizovic does have List A cricketing appearances - so if he had not become a notable footballer, his article would be kept. Bobo . 08:58, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

New sports related IRC channel.

There is now an WP:IRC channel for collaboration between editors in various sports WikiProjects. It's located at #wikipedia-en-sports ^connect. Thanks Secret ^account 03:17, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Bot for List of Indian Premier League records and statistics

I have made a bot which will update List of Indian Premier League records and statistics, which currently has a lot of outdated information. It is currently requesting approval. You can leave your comments or participate in the discussion at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/IPLRecordsUpdateBot. Thanks. jfd34 (talk) 17:19, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

early history of Canterbury Cricket Week

Per Talk:Canterbury Cricket Week - although the official Kent line is that CCW started in 1842, it seems to have started in 1839 under the aegis of the amateur Beverley CC but I've not got any good RS to say so, most take the official party line of ignoring the amateur origins. A key book would appear to be Canterbury Cricket Week - An Authentic Narrative of the Origin and Career of the Institution. Vol I. 1839-1851 (Canterbury:William Davy, 1865) but I suspect it needs a specialist library to dig it out - anyone? The mid-19th century organisation of cricket in Kent gets complicated (between 1859 and 1870 there were two county clubs for the pros, and their guiding lights were also involved in amateur clubs that claimed to represent the county) and most online sources allow themselves to get confused. I'm no expert, I ran into this whilst trying to work out exactly where the Beverley Ground was that preceded the St Lawrence. I suggest Talk:Canterbury Cricket Week is the best place for this. Le Deluge (talk) 11:20, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Sam Robson

Nick Compton narrowly failed last year, but Robson is making a strong effort to join this decidedly elite group of batsmen. --Dweller (talk) 13:32, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Champion County to 1889

Where do we have "main" coverage of the Champion County to 1889?

The cricket section of numerous Years in sport before 1890 identifies the Champion County with this footnote: "An unofficial seasonal title proclaimed by consensus of media and historians prior to December 1889 when the official County Championship was constituted." For instance see 1864 in sports#References and 1871 in sports#References.

I think the note means that media and historians in or around December 1889 identified unofficial champions. Some clarification may be necessary.

Certainly the note needs to include a reference.

In retrospect this note should have been transcluded by WP:Template rather than spelled out at every instance. Perhaps further revision may be anticipated --and use outside the Years in sport compilations may be anticipated-- so the project should develop a template. Offhand I suggest Template:Champion County.

--P64 (talk) 23:55, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi, P64. Good to see you back on the site. We used to have Champion County in a standalone article but decided a few years ago to integrate it into County Championship, where the concept is explained. The Champion County concept goes way back to the 1720s when Kent and Sussex were close rivals and numerous contemporary claims have been documented, especially since 1863 when the media got involved, as well as many retrospective ones. The championship became semi-official in 1873 when residential qualifications were introduced and then fully official at the meeting in December 1889 which launched the tournament in 1890. The residential qualifications were aimed at players like James Southerton who played for all and sundry when they were allowed.

The footnote should link to County Championship, but I don't think it should be retained as WP has moved on and these unofficial claims no longer satisfy WP:Verify. The claims are worth mentioning in season reviews but should not be held up as factual in an article like 1864 in sports. I would remove all mention of Champion County from years in sport to 1872. From 1873 to 1889, you need a note to point out that the claim is based on media consensus but without official sanction other than the application of residential qualifications. From 1890, you need a County Championship line.

Hope this helps. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 04:30, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Jack. I was unsure that there were cricket historians in 1889 and unwilling to infer it from the note.

If and when a historical project of the modern historians --19th-century committee of the ACSH or whatever-- designates retrospective Champion Counties or equivalent, for some years before 1872, those will be verifiable here. 1864 in sports and its siblings might not be the place for it. Those pages carry many forward-looking entries, some expressed in future tense, but they don't look forward to our contemporary historians (as far as I know).

P.S. I have been at EN.wikipedia more than ever during the last two years, but absent from this neighborhood. See the residual of my disambiguation notices. --P64 (talk) 04:49, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

National team squads

Is there any reason for including all the players that played in the previous year in the national squads? Wouldn't it make more sense to adopt the football national sides convention with the team for the current tour and maybe a different table for recent players?

On a different subject, I propose we adopt a style for marking contracted players in national teams. Personally I prefer bolding the respective players as in New Zealand national cricket team. Any thoughts on the subject? Lapusneanul (talk) 01:57, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

The use of bold for emphasis is against the manual of style: MOS:BOLD. A symbol of some kind (a double-dagger maybe) would probably be best. Harrias ^talk 05:57, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Notability of World Cricket League players

I know, I know, here's Andrew with his usual campaign for expanding the notability rules, but hear me out. When we decided on the cut off point for notability at WCL Division Five, there were eight divisions of the World Cricket League. Now that the recently concluded Division Seven tournament in Botswana is over with there will, from now on, only be six divisions. So, would anyone have any serious objections to expanding notability to include all six divisions of the World Cricket League rather than all but one? I'd still like to eventually have all players to have played official internationals to be considered notable, but this change might get me to shut up about that for a while! Andrew nixon (talk) 13:16, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Support. To refuse Division Six now would be like the footie project refusing to recognise the 4th Division (League Two or whatever it's called these days). I always thought the Division Five cutoff was somewhat arbitrary. The bottom line is that this is a recognised international competition and it defies WP:COMMONSENSE to exclude only one division. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 13:21, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

The current CRIN wording, contained in a bullet point, is: has appeared in at least one World Cricket League match of Division Five status or above since 2007 as a player or umpire. I suggest we change that point to: has appeared in at least one World Cricket League match of Division Six status or above since 2007 as a player or umpire. The change would have to be retrospective too. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 13:27, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Agree with that wording, though "since 2007" is superfluous as the competition has only existed since then. Andrew nixon (talk) 13:33, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

If we're saying Division Five (or Division Six from this moment on) is the cut-off for WCL, should we keep the redlinks on these pages? 2013 ICC World Cricket League Division Seven, 2012 ICC World Cricket League Division Eight, 2011 ICC World Cricket League Division Six, 2011 ICC World Cricket League Division Seven... or should we delink them entirely? Bobo . 14:44, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

I also agree with this sensible proposal. --Dweller (talk) 22:31, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

To answer Bobo's question, I think we should retain the redlinks on 2011 ICC World Cricket League Division Six and delink them on the other three pages as we seem to be agreed that these players are not notbale. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 10:57, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

That's what I meant, cheers - sorry I didn't express myself very well there. Bobo . 14:56, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

BUMP! I've changed the word in CRIN to reflect the above: i.e., has appeared in at least one World Cricket League match of Division Six status or above as a player or umpire. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 04:07, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Nomination of Windowgate for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Windowgate is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Windowgate until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Harrias ^talk 16:32, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Redesigned redlinks pages

For anyone who still uses my redlinks pages to help create articles on cricketers past and present, I am in the process of deleting the 25 or so individual subpages, and the redlinks (and assorted bluelinks) are now available on my various sandboxes (1, 2, 3). Bobo . 20:55, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Matt Prior and the England team

Before his pair at Lord's, Prior was being praised as the best wicket-keeper batsman in the world, and various other accolades have come his way. But after looking at the Windowgate thing above,I noticed that his article has nothing in it about his career after the last Ashes series. Normally, conscientious IPs keep the current player articles more-or-less up-to-date, but a quick check shows that many of the current England team are sadly lacking in recent details (although their stats seem right). Alastair Cook is in a better state than Prior but not amazing; Kevin Pietersen, supposedly a FA, is in a bit of a mess and has little after the 2012 English summer; Stuart Broad is entirely missing the 2012-13 season; Jimmy Anderson is just a list of dates for the most part. If anyone has the spare time or inclination, it may be worth doing something about this to make sure that the articles at least give a semi-decent outline of their careers; they will probably get quite a bit of traffic this summer. Sarastro1 (talk) 21:41, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

The Pietersen example highlights one of my criticisms of the FA process. How can it accept an article about a sportsperson who is still active given the certain necessity of ongoing update? ----Jack | ^{talk page} 07:17, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Featured article review of Kevin Pietersen

I have nominated Kevin Pietersen for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Harrias ^talk 14:23, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

His stats were a little weird, more Test matches and Test runs that he's actually played/scored! S.G.^(GH) _ping! 12:03, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

T20 infobox stats

Hello all.

Does anyone think that what I've tried at User:SGGH/sandbox might be an option? I don't know anything about creating infoboxes but I've mocked up what it could look like - appending underneath (but unattached to the cricketer infobox) a infobox for the T20 stats. We could include this second infobox as a completely different template, added to players of T20 notoriety. We could have columns for T20 and T20i as shown there, or T20, T20i and IPL, or anything we want.

Any thoughts? Keep in mind if we did it properly it would be formatted correctly. S.G.^(GH) _ping! 18:25, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Personally, I don't like it. But that said; I'd rather all the stats were taken out of the infobox, and provided in a separate section at the bottom, similar to how it is done for ice hockey (see Claude Giroux#Career statistics for example. However, previous discussions have seen me very much in the minority in this. Harrias ^talk 19:42, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

I'd never even considered that, Harrias, but I think that's a very good idea. The infobox is far too big as it is, IMO, and stats are far too transitive to put in a box that is intended to give all the most important data about a player. – Pee Jay 21:14, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

That's a thought. I suppose Wikipedia is below CricInfo and CricketArchive when people want stats, they come here for prose on the player's life. S.G.^(GH) _ping! 23:45, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Daniel Vettori - of Italian descent?

The Daniel Vettori article states that he "is the first cricketer of Italian descent to represent New Zealand". This is in the lead, unsourced, and not mentioned anywhere else in the article. I tried to find a source for it and found this article on the Guardian's website. The text reads "The first cricketer of Italian descent to play for the Kiwis and one of the few sportsmen to wear prescription spectacles while playing. He is the eighth player in Test history to take 300 wickets and score 3,000 runs" which isn't a million miles away from the text currently in the lead of the article. The Guardian date their article 17 February 2011. A quick look at the article's version prior to this date shows the Italian claim is there, so prehaps The Guardian have taken WP as their source? So does anyone have a source for this claim? Thanks. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 13:05, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

There are plenty of sources that say he's of Italian descent (including his own profile at BlackCaps.co.nz, and plenty saying he was the youngest Test debutant, but I can't find anything that says he was the first of Italian descent to play for NZ. Wisden may be a good place to go looking... The Rambling Man (talk) 13:13, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I've found the same Black Caps profile, as well as a post on Cricinfo about his family (here). But nothing to confirm he was the first. – Pee Jay 15:38, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

To be honest, it's hardly a big deal: do we expect many players of Italian descent to play for New Zealand? I have no problem with it being in the article if we can find a good reference for it, but I don't think it's worthy of being in the lead. Harrias ^talk 15:51, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

Now that you mention it, that's a good point. It was probably added by some Italian nationalist who just wanted to make a point. – Pee Jay 16:16, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

Well to be fair, one of the articles I found (I can't remember which one though) mentioned the fact that there are many many Italian immigrants to NZ... But it's no big deal. More important would be him being the youngest Test debutant for NZ and that he most certainly has Italian heritage. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:41, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks everyone. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 16:59, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

List of English cricketers (1826–1840)

This list is now complete and about half the names are redlinks. We have an article for every player who debuted up to 1825 so, chronologically, this list is the next phase in our one article per player quest. Many of the redlinks are players who represented the early university teams or MCC; or one of any number of occasional elevens, mostly organised by MCC. Most of the county players have articles and the ones that don't are in Bobo's lists too. Still a long, long way to go. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 18:35, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Ross McLean (cricketer)

I just removed some vandalism from Ross McLean (cricketer). Since I know nothing of cricket I may have made some errors in my edit (it is possible that this guy actually did dance in Swan Lake). If someone who knows the sport and the sources could take a look at the article and do additional cleanup, I would appreciate it. Thank you. SchreiberBike talk 19:47, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Appears to have been "constructively" edited over a long-ish period. I've reverted to what looks like the last sensible version (though a lot duller). Johnlp (talk) 20:56, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

List of international cricket centuries by Hashim Amla

The list is at FLC for more than 30 days, comments/suggestions needed. Zia Khan 22:48, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Test centuries

Do we keep the Balls column for Test centuries table? ♛♚★Vaibhav Jain★♚♛ ^Talk ^Email 07:51, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

I'd keep balls to give an idea on the tempo of the innings! Howzat?Out!Out!Out! (talk) 17:55, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

I agree with AssociateAffiliate. If the information is available, let's include it. It can get tricky if you're looking at centuries from decades past as they didn't always make a note. Do you have a specific example in mind? Nev1 (talk) 18:14, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

I'd imagine for most of those where deliveries aren't available, there will be the old-fashioned length of innings in minutes, which would be a reasonable substitute if some kind of measure of time is required. Sarastro1 (talk) 19:50, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Twitter accounts

Rijinatwiki (talk · contribs) has been adding links to twitter accounts for just about every player that has one. I can't remember if it's been discussed here before, but do people have opinions on whether this is the kind of thing that belongs in an encyclopedia article? Nev1 (talk) 18:52, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

I personally think it might be legitimate given the relevance of so many of their Twitter accounts to their careers these days! I would be interested to know what WP:BIOG thinks with regards to biographies in general. S.G.^(GH) _ping! 19:11, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

I think we just have to be sure that it is a legitimate account. Tintin 03:23, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Providing the link is confined to the "External Links" section, fair enough. I don't think anything on a Twitter account should be used in an article, though, as that would surely breach WP:PRIMARY, though it would be acceptable if verified by a secondary source. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 07:01, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

My immediate reaction was no - in general Wikipedia is pretty anti social media, as sources or just links. Hunting around, I think Wikipedia:EL#Official_links is what you're looking for. "Normally, only one official link is included. If the subject of the article has more than one official website, then more than one link may be appropriate, under a very few limited circumstances.[8] However, Wikipedia does not provide a comprehensive web directory to every official website. Wikipedia does not attempt to document or provide links to every part of the subject's web presence or provide readers with a handy list of all social networking sites." Le Deluge (talk) 08:00, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

WP:NOTDIRECTORY covers other things in this general area, though not Twitter specifically. Johnlp (talk) 08:49, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm not too fussed either way; as SGGH suggests, with the prolific rise of Twitter, it can probably be argued pretty convincingly. My first reaction was to remove them, but I figured it would end up more hassle than it was worth. Harrias ^talk 09:55, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

One of the issues, as Tintin1107 points out, is whether these are legitimate accounts. Twitter does have "verified accounts". Of the five accounts I checked, all were "verified". Whether it's the kind of thing that belongs in an encyclopedia article, I'm not so sure. Nev1 (talk) 11:53, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

All the twitter links I added to biographical articles are verified accounts. Since the issue is raised, I stopped adding links further until reaching a general decision. I personally feel it can be included in the the external links section as it is handled directly by the person himself/herself and also considering the wide popularity of twitter. As far as I understand, there is no general rule for what should/shouldn't be in the external links section of a biographical article. Also, I would like to have a discussion on providing verified account in an article about an organization.R!j!n (talk) 17:41, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

I can't see a problem with including verified Twitter accounts in the external links. Just as long as people don't use them as references! Howzat?Out!Out!Out! (talk) 21:28, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

"there is no general rule for what should/shouldn't be in the external links section" - err that's exactly what WP:EL is for! And as the bit in bold above says, it's pretty unambiguous - only one "official" link, don't link to every part of someone's web presence, Wikipedia isn't a social media directory. If the person thinks that Twitter is an important thing for them (many don't), then they will link to it from their official website. Aside from that, there's also the problem of "faddishness" in social media - people get bored and stop updating it, remember when every band had to have a Myspace presence? And Twitter feeds tend not to be about the stuff that made someone notable - ie their cricket in this case - it tends to be more ephemeral than that. So even if it wasn't for WP:EL I'd be against the idea.Le Deluge (talk) 06:49, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

So, consensus would appear to be that these things can be included in EL providing they are valid and relevant to the subject, but they must be EL only and their content must never be used in the article. Agreed? ----Jack | ^{talk page} 16:10, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

I would think that fair. WP:BIOG hasn't gotten back to me on my thread there so never mind their thoughts! The MySpace thing is interesting, because we've always avoided linking that. But then, MySpace hasn't been such a relevant site to cricketers and their careers like Twitter has. S.G.^(GH) _ping! 16:53, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

@Jack - WP:EL is pretty clear that Twitter links should not even appear in external links, you should just link to official websites like www.kevinpietersen.com . I can see that it could just about be justified for people whose use of Twitter is notable in its own right ,as in getting 3rd party media coverage - Stephen Fry and Joey Barton would be obvious examples outside cricket, I'm not sure many cricketers would qualify. Maybe KP at a pinch, but even that is marginal. In its day Myspace was more relevant to bands as it was a main route to market for their music, which is what a band is notable for - Twitter isn't so relevant to someone's cricket. For a similar discussion, see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Football/Archive_60#FACEBOOK.2FTWITTER Le Deluge (talk) 09:36, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

The note at the top of WP:LINKSTOAVOID - "Except for a link to an official page of the article's subject" should qualify an official Twitter account. Hack (talk) 01:15, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

That note in turn links to WP:ELOFFICIAL, which has the bit above about "Normally, only one official link is included....Wikipedia does not provide a comprehensive web directory to every official website. Wikipedia does not attempt to document or provide links to every part of the subject's web presence".Le Deluge (talk) 11:31, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

"More than one official link should be provided only when the additional links provide the reader with significant unique content and are not prominently linked from other official websites. For example, if the main page of the official website for an author contains a link to the author's: blog and Twitter feed, then it is not appropriate to provide links to all three" - indicates that it is okay to have multiple official links if they are independent and significant, and also indirectly hints that twitter is acceptable. Tintin 13:35, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

What if the case when there isn't an official website, but an official(or verified) social networking account is present? R!j!n (talk) 06:44, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Orleans Club

I noticed AA is adding an Orleans Club category to the Graces and others but there was no article about the club so I've created a brief stub. Apart from the usual stats on CricketArchive, there is a piece about the club in a 1982 ACS booklet called A Guide to First-Class Cricket Matches Played in the British Isles. This has info such as foundation and duration about many of these occasional, wandering or otherwise short-lived teams. If anyone needs anything from it re any team you're working on, please let me know. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 04:14, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for creating that Jack. I've got a little bit of information on the actual club, which according to this ceased to exist in 1883, so perhaps the name was carried on until 1888? There's also a section on my userpage here with the twelve Orleans cricketers without articles. Howzat?Out!Out!Out! (talk) 17:55, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

List of Twenty20 International records

The list is at FLC. Comments/suggestions needed. --Black hole78 ^{talk | contrib} 00:17, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Jim Eaglestone/Dick Duckfield

I've started both from the red-link list for Glamorgan players and put them both up for DYK hooks as they have interesting little hooks. Eaglestone featured in successive county-championship winning teams in '48 and '49, and Duckfield had the Glamorgan high-score record for a while. --S.G.^(GH) _ping! 10:56, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

1989 Ashes series

Some interesting journalism, but all kinds of Wikipedia sins being committed in this article, from OR to POV, via PEACOCK. It seems a great shame to hack it to pieces. A gleeful Australian or a masochistic English editor might want to spend some time referencing some of the more "sinful" parts. I've added a useful source to the article talk page. Personally, I had my fill of this sort of glorious misery when bringing The Summer of Four Captains to FA. --Dweller (talk) 20:57, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Query on Infobox

I'm having trouble getting the "Onetype" command to work on Template:Infobox cricketer: if you look at the box on, for example, Granny Alston, it seems to be throwing out an error. Is there someone who knows how to fix it? Thanks. Johnlp (talk) 20:48, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Should be fixed now. The code looks to have been missing a "}" Harrias ^talk 21:32, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. I'm afraid I wouldn't know where to look... Johnlp (talk) 21:46, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Ravindra Jadeja

Did you see this month's Cricketer?

India's Ravindra Jadeja has two triple-centuries to his name and his slow-left armers accounted for Michael Clarke five times in the recent Test whitewash. Yet, according to his Wikipedia entry, he is also "a philanthropist, a Nobel prize winner, a double Laureus sportsman of the year, and the nearest human to God". Someone took exception to these accolades and the line has since been removed.

--S.G.^(GH) _ping! 12:38, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Andrew Speed

Interesting chap, there are some good names in amongst those 29 wickets! --S.G.^(GH) _ping! 19:51, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Dumb question

On a CricInfo scorecard[12], does the asterisk mean captain? What does the dagger mean? Woodshed (talk) 20:32, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Not a dumb question at all. It's a very good question. You're right that the asterisk indicates the team captain. The dagger is the wicketkeeper. Let us know if you need any more information. Thanks very much. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 20:41, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Well, if you're in the business of answering dumb questions ... are matches in the WCL considered ODIs? More to the point, would matches played by the U.S. in the ICC Americas Championship or the WCL Div. 3 count as an ODI match? Thanks. Woodshed (talk) 21:20, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

whilst others here are more involved in associate matches, I am fairly sure only matches at the actual world cup or against full members are given odi status. If you go to cricket archive and search a players game list, you can see what games are labeled odi and what ones are misc.The-Pope (talk) 00:19, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I'll add a bit to that… ODIs are basically all matches played between the ten "full" and six select "associate" members of the International Cricket Council. So certain WCL matches are classified as ODIs, depending upon who's playing (e.g. some matches in the ongoing WCL Championship are ODIs, some are not). More to the point, the U.S.'s matches in the WCL aren't classified as ODIs, but they are classed as List A matches, which is a broader, although less exclusive, category. (The US did play two ODIs during the 2004 ICC Champions Trophy, however). Hope this was helpful and not too tangential :) IgnorantArmies 11:29, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

You guys are the best. Thanks so much. Woodshed (talk) 11:44, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Brian Booth

The Brian Booth article says that "Booth was selected as an inside left (for hockey in 1956 Olympics), but was not utilised in any of Australia's matches.[2][19]"

The citations are "Jack, Pollard, Cricket the Australian Way" and "Ray Robinson, On Top Down Under". If someone has these books, can you please confirm if they explicitly say that Booth did not play in any match. Tintin 05:45, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

He is not listed in the official olympic report as a competitor (search at the LA84 foundation), but he is listed at http://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/athletes/bo/brian-booth-1.html. Looking at the game descriptions and dates, the two games he played in appear to be a 5th-8th playoff that wasn't fully recognised as part of the olympic competition. You could try researching the papers of that time for more info. The-Pope (talk) 07:44, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. That was exactly where I was coming from. The classification matches are not listed in the official report, nor in the count of matches played by Australia in the massive Complete Book of Olympics by David Wallechinsky. But the news reports (I checked Age) do not appear to make any distinction. Australia in fact played three classification matches - apart from the two listed, they also won 5-0 against Singapore on Dec 6.

But does it say anywhere that classification matches were not part of the olympic competition ? The 23/11/1956 mentioned in the sports-reference link was the starting day of the competition that ran until Dec 6. Just like it is done now, these matches were played on the same day as the semifinals and final (plus one extra day between the two matches). Looking at Wallechinsky, it appears that classification matches are included in the stats of teams in all other Olympics, though I need to check the official reports to be sure. A sample result from Age can be found in http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=MDQ-9Oe3GGUC&dat=19561207&printsec=frontpage&hl=en , page 13, under 'Details of Games Events'. Was under the impression that there were no 5-12 matches (had checked official report & Wallechinsky a while ago) till Booth mentioned it in a CI interview yesterday (http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/643285.html ), and which led to this thread. Tintin 08:38, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Advice on use of phrase "original form"

A very simple question: if one version of indoor cricket was invented/first played in 1970, and another version in 1977 (earliest estimate), then is it accurate and appropriate to describe the former as the "original form" as a means of accurately distinguishing them?

Please see: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Indoor_cricket_(UK_variant)&diff=prev&oldid=563253306 and comment here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Indoor_cricket_(UK_variant).

Thanks Py0alb (talk) 12:23, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Main Page and The Ashes

Given that tomorrow is an ever-so-slightly important day, it's great that it's being marked with the Main Page appearance of Leg before wicket. Kudos to the editors who got it to Featured status earlier this year and I dropped Bencherlite a line to thank him for his (as ever) excellent scheduling. While I'm here, I thought I'd draw your attention to this typically brilliant piece of writing by Simon Barnes of The Times:

With every Ashes series the old banter is polished off once again. Same old Poms, soft underbelly and all: while the Australians are unlettered oafs, admittedly quite good at sport but as Dame Edna herself said, that’s because of the sun, the sea, the outdoor life and the total lack of any intellectual stimulation.
And we're happy with that. My old Australian friend Alan Hargreaves suggested: 'The Anglo-Aussie rivalry is one of the few bits of inter-cultural banter that has survived political correctness, possibly because both sides are prominently white. Use any of those jokes outside the Anglo-Aussie arena and it will be billed as 'causal racism', a term that recently got traction here. These days the word 'bastard' can only be considered endearing if aimed at Poms.'
The two nations have grown together. These days there are far more things that unite us than divide us. I love Australia. I love a few carefully selected Australians. They are us and we are them.
It's because of what we have in common that I look forward so much to the unprecedented spectacle of back-to-back Ashes series, and do so with the pious hope that we will take on our dear friend and beat the bastards in a savage and uncompromising fashion.

Enjoy every minute, everyone. It's going to be a treat. --Dweller (talk) 20:38, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Caesar (Kent cricketer)

Probably the least notable notable cricketer ever! --S.G.^(GH) _ping! 16:42, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Given the rarity of the surname, there must be a fair chance that this a brother of Benjamin Caesar. The location of Caesar's known match suggests that there's a good chance that Caesar could well have been a "given man" from Surrey to Kent to even up the perceived strength of the two sides (a common practice at this time). Since he scored 47, a very good effort given the pitches of the time, he must have been pretty useful. JH (talk page) 17:58, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

There are plenty worse ones than this. I've just completed a list of everyone who played for the Gents in GvP and many of them are unbelievable. They definitely did go in for the syndrome of "Let's give so-and-so a game; went to a good school; pater in the City, don't y'know; sound, what, sound!" Even as late as 1947, they would give someone like this a game. As JH says, the Caesars were a formidable cricketing family, especially Julius himself. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 19:29, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

I thinki that may be a little unfair on the poor chap. The 1948 Wisden (p. 601) devotes 11 lines to that match, of which approximately a line and a half (so 10%) is allocated to saying "Indisposition of Brennan left the Gentlemen without a wicket-keeper and Cheetham, of Bridlington, was called in." They must have rated him as a batsman: he came in at number 5, ahead of Norman Yardley. Cheetham had a poor match with the bat, but so did just about all of his team mates. In the only innings the Players required, Cheetham made one dismissal - catching Cyril Washbrook off Tony Mallett. Buuuut... he did concede, erm, 33 byes! -Let's be charitable and say the bowling was wayward? -Dweller (talk) 08:01, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

The Gents' bowling generally was, as you say, wayward. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 17:27, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Deja vu

Listening to some of the comments I've heard today about the Hughes/Agar stand, you'd think nothing like it has ever happened before. Well, even though I was at junior school at the time, I distinctly remember a Test that was England's for the taking and they lost after a big tenth wicket partnership between Graham McKenzie and the great Alan Davidson. Old Trafford 1961. The difference then was that Davidson did most of the scoring but what we saw today could be history repeating itself. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 21:33, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Well they did set quite a few new world records, so, actually, nothing like it HAD ever happened before. He was playing his first test and he is only 19 years old. It was pretty amazing. Will be interesting to see how high his page views spiked - it was just updated, so 15k for the selection, 77k for "the innings". So in 2 days he'll probably be in the top 20 viewed cricket articles for the month. So far in his first class career he's had two match winning 10th wicket partnerships for WA of 94 (which set up a big enough lead to win) and 68* actually chasing down victory. I doubt many players would have three 50+ 10th wicket partnerships in their career, let alone in their first 20 innings. I don't think we'll ever see him bat at 11 again though, and what is it with Aussie spinners in the 90s holing out to mid wicket? Why didn't they check for a no ball? The-Pope (talk) 02:16, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

I well remember that Old Trafford Test of 1961. I think for me it fell in the summer holidays, and I watched almost all of the final day's play on television. It was a remarkable day, in which fortunes would shift first one way and then the other, before finishing in an Australian win. Agar is clearly already a far more accomplished batsman than McKenzie ever was - and IIRC McKenzie was a comparatively elderly 21. :) JH (talk page) 08:59, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Initials in Template:Test match and Template:Limited overs matches

As some of you will have noticed if you are paying attention to the 2013 Ashes series, User:Jono21319 made an edit today to restore the use of initials in the score summary templates. As a traditionalist, I agree with this change, but I have reverted back to full names until a new consensus can be reached. Is the community still in favour of using full names in the {{Test match}} and {{Limited overs matches}} templates? How about the use of square brackets to indicate the number of overs bowled; e.g. [8.3] vs (8.3 overs)? – Pee Jay 17:15, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

I definitely favour initials. The square brackets idea is okay and I'd go with that. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 17:24, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Out of interest, is square brackets standard notation? I've only ever seen it used on here. My problem with it is that it's not obvious what it means. Someone familiar with cricket could work out from context that it refers to the number of overs bowled, but not everyone who reads these articles will be familiar with cricket. – Pee Jay 17:45, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

My perspective: yes for initials, round brackets are the norm in most texts I access and dropping the word "overs" is obscurism. --Dweller (talk) 20:19, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Ah, yes, I wouldn't drop "overs" in this context. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 21:21, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Reverting to initials would equal the removal of information. Are the old fogies here going to insist that radio and TV commentators do it too? Get with the times. HiLo48 (talk) 02:35, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

I agree. Though I am, in many ways, a cricket purist too, I think on Wikipedia we need to keep the name rather than initials. On a cricket website, initials are enough, but on Wikipedia, where we are catering more to laypeople than to experts, the additional information and clarity provided by the full name is preferential to the initials. Harrias ^talk 06:52, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

I thought it worth looking at CricInfo. They have a bit each way. Their Summary tab, the default view seen first by most viewers looking for match scores, uses names. Their Full scorecard tab uses initials. Naturally the rest of the site, Commentary and articles, etc, use names. HiLo48 (talk) 07:21, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

My argument would be that we should be accompanying all summary templates with some prose. Not to do so would be a violation of WP:NOTSTATS. Therefore, the players' names should be present in the prose section, meaning that no information would be lost by reverting to initials in the summary/stats tables. This way, we can appease both the cricket purists and the modernists. – Pee Jay 10:03, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

OK, I'm willing to act on this apparent consensus now and change a buttload of articles to use initials instead of full names. Any final objections? – Pee Jay 19:31, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Given your argument about regarding WP:NOTSTATS, I think the change to initials should be limited to those articles that are complete enough to have the name in full elsewhere in the article. But consensus seems to be for initials, so if it goes otherwise, I guess I'll just have to accept it. Harrias ^talk 20:29, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm with Harrias on this one: names in full somewhere in the article at least, please, if they can't be accommodated in the score summary. The initials thing reminds me too much of the Fred Titmus story: relayed here for those unfamiliar with it. Johnlp (talk) 23:44, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

This does sound like a fair compromise, and one that can be reached by including a list of the squads used by each team on each tour, as well as (in time) adding prose descriptions of the in-match action. I do sense that there could be a problem when full squads are unknown and we can't, in all good conscience, add a squad table for fear of it being incomplete. Also, it will take a while to clear the backlog of articles missing prose. – Pee Jay 23:59, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, given names MUST be given somewhere very conspicuous in the article, otherwise we are removing information. And they must not be simply buried in text. We also confront the issue of names from other cultures not structured in the traditional British way. Initials don't really work for some. HiLo48 (talk) 00:28, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Initials have always been used in scorecards and summaries for reasons of space, nothing else. It is not a case of moving with the times or doing things in some perceived "traditional British way" because initials have never gone away. Perhaps certain young fogies should stop trying to appear "cool" and start living in the real world?

The name with initials in a score summary should always be linked to the article and that, per WP:CRIN, must be titled according to the player's universally used name (which in some English cases and some Australian cases include initials). If the player is mentioned in the main text, then he must be introduced by his article title with a link to the article. Thereafter, he can be mentioned by surname only as long as that will not create ambiguity. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 11:03, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. Any arguments about full names in score summaries fall down due to the fact that most reliable sources present scorecards and score summaries using either names with initials or surnames only. The main body of text is the only place where Wikipedia rules apply more stringently. – Pee Jay 15:26, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Cricket statues

There's a serious academic-style study to be made here. Shows that in standing motionless (at the crease, in the town square, anywhere really) the Aussies have still got us beaten. Johnlp (talk) 07:51, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Alex Wyatt

Hi guys. This article, one which I created, was PRODded by another user. Is obviously notable - otherwise I wouldn't have added him! Could do with a bit of work to be honest - the portions I'm responsible for frankly sound like one of my really old articles. All the best. Bobo . 12:12, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Aleem Dar

Could some of you please come over to Talk:Aleem Dar, there is a dispute over whether his article should mention his not out decision against Stuart Broad. Thanks. Jevansen (talk) 01:46, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Test cricket umpires

Hi. I've filled in the redlinks from List of Test cricket umpires - please help if you can to expand the articles (full list here). I have a question about Cricinfo. For the article on Toby Rollox, Cricinfo lists that he is 100 years old. Is it a case of they don't know his actual date of death (as I assume), or is he actually over 100 years of age? I'm guessing they leave death info as blank unless they know it for sure. Thanks. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 13:00, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Since they say "Current age" I assume that, as far as they know, he is still alive. (But I imagine that it's quite possible that he died many years ago.) Oddly, CricketArchive have an entry for "Alwyn Rollox" who, from the matches played and umpired, seems to be the same guy, for whom they give dates of neither birth nor death! So not only his death but even his name seems to be uncertain! I think you're going to have to put in a lot of footnotes to deal with the uncertainty. JH (talk page) 17:30, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Jamaican Daily Gleaner calls him Alwyn and Toby on different days of the Test match he officiated in. A. B. Rollox was one of the 18 players called up by British Guiana for the Inter-Colonial Match in 1932: he appears to have come from Demerara. BTW, well done to Lugnuts for doing this fairly thankless task! Johnlp (talk) 18:20, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks both. Yes, some interesting characters in that list. Hope to fill in more redlinks for first-class cricketers soon. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 13:45, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

1826

A significant year. It was the first season after the Lord's fire and so the first one in which we can be reasonably sure of having a nearly complete knowledge of the major matches played. It was the last season in which underarm held sway as the roundarm era effectively began in 1827 when the trial matches were held. A total of 45 players made their "first-class debuts" in 1826 and one of them was William Clarke, arguably the most influential figure in cricket history.

Possibly because of the roundarm question, the end of the 1826 season was the cutoff point between the first and second volumes of Scores and Biographies. It must be inevitable that one or two will have slipped through the net but, subject to that little caveat, we now have an article for every notable player who was active to the end of the 1826 season which means we now have something about everyone of note who is mentioned in S&B Volume 1.

So the start point for redlinks has moved to 1827 and the number of debutants in that season who still have redlinks is, gulp, 36. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 15:23, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

But all 36 have been done, set up as stubs. So now the start point for redlinks is 1828. I don't know how many there are yet in 1828 itself. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 19:46, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Bump! All players who debuted in 1828 now have an article so the redlink startpoint moves to 1829. I don't yet know how many debutants there were that year (there were only 12 f/c matches). ----Jack | ^{talk page} 09:58, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Angry Gooch

I remember this match quite well. I seem to remember that Gooch was very angry after the last over, which he bowled, that disappeared for a large number of runs. Questions: 1) Can anyone explain why Gooch bowled it - was there a reason Gatt didn't turn to a mainstream bowler like Neil Foster for the all-important last over? 2) In my mind's eye, Gooch absolutely smashed the first ball he received for four runs, such that it bounced back off the advertising boards and back over the rope and onto the field. Can anyone confirm any of that? Cheers --Dweller (talk) 11:43, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

This might explain it... "Foster's seventh over (the 53rd) cost 20 runs and the 55th, bowled by Gooch, cost 26 (including 5 wides) as Hadlee in six balls added to the mayhem" source. The-Pope (talk) 17:35, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I don't think it really answers either of my questions, though it does quantify just how many his over went for. 26 was a heck of a lot in an ODI over at that time. Not sure the five wides were anyone's fault but his own, though! --Dweller (talk) 19:31, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

It explains why Gooch bowled it and not Foster, as 20 runs from Foster's previous over was too much to risk letting him have another go, Gooch had bowled 6 overs for 22 runs and I'm assuming that Dilley or Pringle bowled the 54th, and both of them were going at over 6rpo anyway. The-Pope (talk) 23:08, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Ah, gotcha, thanks. --Dweller (talk) 09:30, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Infobox

I can see that our infobox requests page is overwhelmed, so I'm cheekily posting here to ask if someone who knows what they're doing could replace the old hat version of infobox at David Steele (cricketer) with the better one which includes f-c stats. I have a real soft spot for Steele, even though I can't remember his career at all. --Dweller (talk) 15:23, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Done Harrias ^talk 16:31, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Tyvm! --Dweller (talk) 09:29, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Bowling economy

In my very slow mopping up of county cricketers with reasonable careers but without articles, I've come across the wonderfully named Horace Snary of Leicestershire. With a name like his, he would have had to possess considerable bowling wiles, but I'm intrigued that his economy rate across a reasonably long career (400+ wickets) is 1.72 runs per over, which seems remarkably frugal. "Mean" bowlers that I can remember, such as Tom Cartwright, John Mortimore and Derek Shackleton, conceded more than two per over; earlier, Hedley Verity was 1.88 and Bobby Peel 1.97. I know scoring rates per over were rather less before one-day cricket, but is Snary the tightest bowler of them all? Johnlp (talk) 08:02, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

That's remarkable. I think you might have to go back to Alfred Shaw to find a more economical bowler. If I recall correctly Shaw averaged less than 1 run per 4-ball over (so less than 1.5 when converted to 6-ball overs). JH (talk page) 08:20, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, you're right, Shaw is 1.44 runs per over. Snary may have to settle for "tightest-bowler-you've-never-heard-of". Johnlp (talk) 08:40, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

1831

Bobo . 22:17, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

1832

Bobo . 23:32, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

1833

Bobo . 00:31, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

1834

Bobo . 02:27, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

1829

1829 debutantes:

Bobo . 21:07, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

That's good. I like that. Tell me, do you use a facility within CA to match players to their debut years as I'm not aware of one? ----Jack | ^{talk page} 18:42, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

No no - just filter by season and find the cricketers for whom it says: "T Paley made his debut in first-class matches", or such. It's a long process, sure, but it's consistent, and I love doing the same thing consistently over and over again - at least that means I'm focused on a single task at any one time. That's how I got my first-class players lists done, after all. When I have more energy, possibly at 1am or so when everything has settled down, I'll attempt to make a list for 1830 debutantes. Bobo . 21:08, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Ah, I started doing that once but I got fed up of constant page changing on CA which takes too long (I actually hate it as a site, technically speaking; it's dominated by its adverts which impact usability to a ridiculous extent). So I use the seasonal battting averages in name order and work it out from there by reference to lists of who has played previously (I have these in an XL). Again, very long-winded, especially wikifying the names, but it gets there in the end. Thanks for doing the other years too. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 18:16, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm not rushing over the process. I've got my mind on doing a few other things at present - and anyway, that's probably enough redlinks to be getting along with by now. ;) Bobo . 20:08, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Is this something that you guys want , I mean list of debutantes by year ? If so for which years ,let me know .I already have the first class scorecards downloaded,picking the debutants from that should be done by a simple program ? Sumant81 (talk) 09:26, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Don't worry Sumant, I've got all the information done already, just a case of getting it all done and formatted so that I can read it. Bobo . 14:32, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Sumant, I already have lists of the cricketers who still need articles from over 160 teams, so don't worry if the task will take you too long. Bobo . 14:40, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

All 1829 players now have articles. Startpoint for redlinks moves on to 1830. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 04:24, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps the worst ever cricket article of all time!

Most loved cricketer!!! I've not requested speedy delete or what not just yet, it deserves its five minutes for laughs! Howzat?Out!Out!Out! (talk) 18:50, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

As well as being deeply trivial, I suspect that most of its text has been lifted straight from the ESPN Cricinfo article it was based on, and so it's in breach of copyright as well. JH (talk page) 19:44, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

It doesn't even include Archibald Fargus... Howzat?Out!Out!Out! (talk) 19:55, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Free Wisden e-books

Google Books have made the 1864 and 1866-71 Wisdens available as free e-books. The available formats include PDF, for those of us who can't handle anything more fancy. See here. JH (talk page) 19:47, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

So, it's true what they say about the 1864 edition. Some sections are anything and everything but cricket! ----Jack | ^{talk page} 04:58, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

1830

Bobo . 21:41, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Done. We now have articles for all significant cricket people who were active up to and including 1830. Startpoint for redlinks moves to 1831. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 06:04, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

1836

Bobo . 00:30, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

1835

Bobo . 03:24, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Something gone wrong here. Several of these such as Ward, Cobbett and Wenman made their debuts much earlier. By the way, James Broadbridge should redirect to Jem Broadbridge. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 06:08, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Judging by my new list, I think I must have put a separate year as the start year - probably a typing error, entirely my own fault. Will post an amended list soon. Cheers. Bobo . 13:51, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

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