Talk:History of Test cricket from 1877 to 1883

A very detailed account of the 1882 Ashes Match
I have the resources (newspaper articles, reconstructions, biographies, autobiographies and tour books) available to provide an almost ball-by-ball account of the 1882 Test Match at The Oval. I've written a rather long introduction to it on the page concerned (although it could be a lot longer), and I would like to know if I have leave to go ahead with what will probably be a bit of an overkill. Cheers, Robertson-Glasgow 08:08, 5 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't think that any one individual is in a position to say that you should or you shouldn't - it's really a question of consensus. For anything much longer than what we have now, it might be best to write a separate article with a suitable title and link to it from this one (and also link to it from The Ashes). Oh, and welcome to Wiki, which I guess was my doing. :) I like your choice of user name. It was I who wrote the first draft of the Wiki article for him. JH 20:36, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Thank you, JH. Great man, "Crusoe": "[In the match in 1920 in which Oxford beat Essex] Charlie McGahey and A. C. Russell had put on some 60 runs at the start of their second innings when I bowled McGahey with a full pitcher, which he later referred to as a yorker. In the bowels of the pavilion, Johnny Douglas, the Essex captain, asked him how he was out, and McGahey answered: 'I was bowled by an old [censored] I thought was dead two thousand years ago, called Robinson Crusoe.'" Cheers, Robertson-Glasgow 08:08, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
 * IMHO, it could be trimmed a bit because the intro is much longer than the description of actual play. Tintin (talk) 20:45, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah, the intro was meant to be a bit of a sample of how detailed the piece was going to be. Cheers, Robertson-Glasgow 08:08, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi there kids, I'm new to this caper but I simply had to cast doubt on the account of the second test match. Whomsoever wrote it seemed to think that Hill was playing for Australia while the scorecard shows that he not only played for Lillywhite's XI but did not take the first two wickets in that team's first innings - I mean, how could he have done so while sitting, padded up in the pavilion? Regards 165.12.252.11 03:18, 16 February 2007 (UTC)Baxter de Wahl

A new Ashes book
Does anyone have or know anything about Christopher Hilton's "The Birth of the Ashes: The Amazing Story of the First Ashes Test" (Breedon Books, Oct 2006)? Apparently there's a lot of groundbreaking research that went on there.--Robertson-Glasgow 08:06, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Arthur Courcy the umbrella-handle muncher???
In the article, it is written that "an Epsom stockbroker called Arthur Courcy, is said to have bitten through his brother-in-law's umbrella handle." I've read countless times about "a spectator" biting through his umbrella handle, but I have never seen him named. Is there any sort of reference to this? Cheers, Robertson-Glasgow 08:20, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Worry not, all; this has been resolved. Robertson-Glasgow 15:48, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Citations needed
I haven't flagged them in the article, but the quotations from CP Moody and Neville Cardus need to have the books that they are taken from cited. (Nice work, BTW.) JH (talk page) 20:52, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I shall get to it. Robertson-Glasgow 15:47, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Problems
Having, at BlackJack's bidding, skimmed through the article, I think a few hitherto-unmentioned points worthy of notice:

Crusoe (talk) 16:57, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) The voyage between England and Australia was not invariably a 48-day affair.  In 1882, for example, the SS Assam took 49 days to convey Murdoch's men from Melbourne to Plymouth, while Ivo's winter wag, delayed by a Sympleglades-like collision with the Glenroy, took as many as 57.
 * 2) It is also untrue that the term "Test Match" did not enter the cricketing patois until 1885: Hammersley employed it in Sands & Kenny's Cricketers' Guide to denote five important matches on Stephenson's 1861/62 tour.
 * 3) Whether the Ashes were presented to Bligh after he had secured them (as the article suggests) or beforehand at Sunbury (as is far more likely the case) has not been established.
 * 4) It is also not universally agreed that the 1882/83 rubber ought to be seen as comprising only three games.  A fourth (which, significantly, England lost, thereby drawing the series level) has been granted Test-Match status.
 * 5) Although I am inclined to believe that Charles Bannerman's post-century subscription yielded the £80 that the article stipulates, I have a tome back home which claims as much as £165, a delightful isotropy with his eventual score.  That said book was authored by Denzil Batchelor (Fry's amanuensis) casts significant doubt over its factual probity, but a reference would nevertheless be in order.
 * 6) The section The tours of 1878, 1878–79 and 1880 remains fearful, despite my work on its various factual and grammatical aberrations.  This is the section which most threatens the article's featured status.


 * The first point could be addressed by saying something on the lines of "typically 48 days" or "48 days or more". It would obviously depend a lot on the weather encountered. JH (talk page) 16:39, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

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