Talk:Jack Hobbs

Overhaul Time
This article is atrociously short given the importance of its subject. Crusoe (talk) 11:36, 1 June 2008 (UTC)


 * And worse than that, like many Wiki cricket articles, the reader needs to find the small print to know why he's important. I just added that he scored more runs and centuries than anyone else to the introduction.  Not, I think, unimportant.KD Tries Again (talk) 03:31, 14 September 2008 (UTC)KD Tries Again


 * Why is more than than half of the section on his playing career taken up with an account of his breaking Grace's record? Surely that is disproportionate. --John Price (talk) 16:51, 28 April 2010 (UTC)


 * I think the problem is more that the rest of the article, for such an important player, is too short. One day perhaps I'll get around to extending it, if nobody beats me too it. JH (talk page) 17:13, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

"For a full discussion of the point see note 3 below."
(At the end of the "His place in cricket history" section.) The problem is that note 3 is his Cricinfo profile, which does not discuss the point at all, fully or otherwise! It's always a bad idea to refer to a specific numbered footnote in this way, as the numbers change as footnotes are added (or removed). I've changed it to point to Variations in First-Class Cricket Statistics, where Hobbs' case is indeed discussed. Loganberry (Talk) 00:43, 4 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I have an idea that I may have been the guilty party there. JH (talk page) 11:10, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

The Master
At the moment, we have two different stories concerning the origin of the title being mentioned in the article. According to the quotation from Hal Hooker, he was already known as that - at least to the Australians - by the early 1920s. But according to Ronald Mason's biography of Hobbs, he was only given the title by Douglas Jardine as late as 1932. JH (talk page) 18:22, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm doing a little digging, but at the moment the Mason story seems unlikely. McKinstry kind of insists he was known as the Master in the 1920s, without anything too concrete. However, he tells a nice story about the first time George Macaulay bowled at him, making fun of his grand title before changing his mind. This sounds plausible as Mac was a huge, huge admirer of Hobbs and it is the sort of thing that he could have done. That would have been early 1920s, but not too sure how reliable this is yet. I'll keep looking. --Sarastro1 (talk) 21:53, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Sea-sickness?
''In 1907–08, Hobbs was chosen by Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) to tour Australia. He always suffered from sea-sickness and was incapacitated on arrival so that he was unavailable for the First Test against Australia'' I'm wondering if this may have been something more than just seasickness. The tour schedule on Cricketarchive shows that the First Test took place more than six weeks after the team landed in Australia, and I can't believe that the after effects of sea-sickness could last so long. JH (talk page) 21:22, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I was just getting onto this section! His sea-sickness was legendary and is certainly worth a mention in the article. However, I think the article is currently just wrong, as he missed the first game of the tour but played afterwards before the first Test. Apparently, Arthur Jones did not rate him and so left him out of several warm-ups and the first test. And how right Mr Jones was proven by subsequent events to leave him out... --Sarastro1 (talk) 21:42, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
 * This section has now been altered and corrected. --Sarastro1 (talk) 22:08, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

1908
Hopefully the two paragraphs that have been omitted will go back in in some form, as both his final appearance with Grace in the opposition and Bill Hitch's tribute are worth recording. JH (talk page) 08:55, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree about the Grace final appearance, although I think a footnote would be better as it does not directly concern Hobbs or his career. However, I'm less sure about the Hitch comment. McKinstry, as well as Arlott, mention it (although McKinstry then goes down the "everyone loves Blythe" line), but I'm struggling to understand why. He was not a great batsman, so the "batting opposite" and comparing his batting to that of Hobbs (which in effect is what he does) is baffling. If someone like MacLaren or Hayward, or even another Surrey batsman, made such a comment, then fine. But a bowler? And also, Hitch was not an authority on the game in the sense that Swanton or Cardus, or a player like Fry or Noble, is generally considered to be. So why include a quote from him? If anything, the Wisden report would be better (McKinstry quotes it) but then, in an article which is bound to be incredibly long, is it worth giving the space to one innings which was not that significant in the grand scheme of things? Mason, in contrast, barely mentions the innings. --Sarastro1 (talk) 19:48, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Also, looking at the Grace match, there are really very few grounds for including the information in this article. In the match, Hobbs scored 0 and it really had no bearing on his season. I can't think of a good reason why this match needs including in the article, nor why Grace's final appearance is important for Hobbs. It would have to be shoe-horned in as a sentence which didn't fit, or a note. But I can't think where a note could really go. --Sarastro1 (talk) 20:27, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

To do
Most of his career is now complete. Remaining tasks, with an initial aim of GA:
 * Make the lead much, much better
 * Create forks on early and later career to include most of the details; then for the main article:
 * Cut back the detail in his career: page size is currently 15,392 words. Ideally, this should be cut to around 6,000 to leave room for the following. Sort of done
 * Much more on technique
 * Analysis of success/impact
 * Opening partners
 * Professional-Amateur stuff
 * Personality? Attitude?

Also, other sources:
 * Wisden articles
 * Social History
 * Gents and Players
 * Gibson's Captains
 * Many, many obituaries
 * Check the Mason and Arlott biographies for missed stuff.
 * Hill, Sutcliffe Sarastro1 (talk) 22:05, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Other points from Jhall1:
 * Style and technique - incl. rated the best batsman on bad pitches (reference to his two famous partnerships with Sutcliffe on sticky wickets)
 * Contrast between pre-War and post-War batting style - more attacking pre-war (now mentioned in the lead)
 * Fine field at cover - reputed to have run out 15 batsmen on one tour of Australia
 * Four great opening partnerships (now mentioned in the lead) - excelled on their running between the wickets, especially with Rhodes
 * Origin of name "The Master"
 * The Master's Club (now mentioned in the lead but could do with a bit more - or even its own article which could be linked to?)
 * Very popular with his peers and the general public - modest, sense of humour I think

JH (talk page) 09:08, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Grave
I took a pic of the Hobbs family grave in Hove Cemetery a couple of years ago. Let me know if it is of use in the article, and I will upload it w/ a Public Domain licence. Hassocks 5489 (Floreat Hova!)  20:05, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Comments
I know I missed the boat with the FAC, and this is a great article, but I have made a minor changes and I wanted to add some relatively minor comments:
 * The prose seems a bit flat in places, concentrating heavily on who-scored-what and batting averages and the like. That said, this article has more colour than many cricket biographies.
 * Fair enough, but there's not much more that can realistically be added. And if you are not too happy about the heavy lists of facts, why do you want to know who was ahead of him in the averages? Sarastro1 (talk) 20:51, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I saw several times "he was second" and my instant reaction was "gosh, the person who was first must have done well - who was that?" Adding in a bit of extra prose should space out the statistics a bit. Ferma (talk) 21:28, 7 June 2013 (UTC)


 * The word "although" was overdone occasionally, which I have tried to finesse with some elegant variation.
 * Guilty as charged, and thanks for that. There were some clangers there that you've fixed! Sarastro1 (talk) 20:51, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
 * So I got at least one thing partly right? Ferma (talk) 21:28, 7 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I have added links to the articles in the tours and seasons: some of the articles linked are inadequate but will no doubt improve in time, but many add additional information or colour if a reader wants more.
 * Hmmm. I'd have preferred this to be discussed here before you did it. Personally, I dislike overlinking in this way and think it leads to an unnecessary sea of blue. However, I know some like so many links so I can live with it. Sarastro1 (talk) 20:51, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Be Bold, no? Feel free to take them out. Ferma (talk) 21:28, 7 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I have also added a few links to scorecards for some of the important matches, when I found myself wanting a bit more information on what happened. I would prefer to see even more of the scorecards linked, if possible every time a specific match is mentioned, but it will require a bit more work!
 * Err... Why? First, as this is a FA, please make sure the references follow the same format as the rest of the article. Second, we are not cricinfo or cricketarchive. If you want the scorecards, follow the links to those sites. This is over-referencing. The info is included in the references given, and we should not add more references just because those ones are online. It leads to far too many references, a point you make below, and is unnecessary when we can just link to (e.g.) Player Oracle at CA (see ref 32). This is not done in any FA for cricket or any other sport that I have seen, nor have I seen it in GAs either. Sarastro1 (talk) 20:51, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Why? Because I wanted more context on some of his extraordinary achievements in the matches that were specifically mentioned, and it was a pain in the backside trogging though links at CA and CI to find them. I did at least try to format the references rather than just using bare URLs. Shrug. Surely the scorecard is one of the best sources for what happened in a particular match. Ferma (talk) 21:28, 7 June 2013 (UTC)


 * The level of citation appears somewhat excessive (321 footnotes!) particularly when so much comes from just one source (McKinstry) . The blue superscripts can be distracting, particularly when there are two or three in a single sentence. But I suppose that is what is expected these days.
 * Unavoidable, I'm afraid. Sarastro1 (talk) 20:51, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
 * There are other ways of adding references. Whatever. Ferma (talk) 21:28, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

No doubt this is mostly stylistic, and I will defer to the authors if they object. -- Ferma (talk) 17:17, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your edits. I've partially reverted some, and left edit summaries to explain my reasoning. Some of your changes either change or go against suggestions that came up at the extensive PR and FAC; others do not look like prose improvements - some very good copyeditors and prose people have looked at this article and some of the wording is theirs. Finally, it would be helpful if you did not make so many changes at once; it makes it hard to see how much has been done, and more edit summaries would help. Sarastro1 (talk) 20:51, 7 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Yeah, thanks but no thanks. For what it is worth, I prefer making edits in one go where I can, and find it intensely annoying when someone clogs up the exit history by making a series of minor edits one after another, but at least you do comprehensive edit summaries. I should have thought that a few of the links I added Minor Counties for example, or sticky wicket would be useful but I said I would defer to the authors. Happy editing. -- Ferma (talk) 21:28, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

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