Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Somerset County Cricket Club in 2009/archive2


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by Ucucha 15:21, 6 November 2011.

Somerset County Cricket Club in 2009

 * Nominator(s):  Harrias  talk 14:48, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

From my previous nomination: "I am nominating this for featured article because I feel it comprehensively covers the topic, and provides a neutral and well-written analysis." I feel I have addressed the outstanding remarks from the previous FAC: I have used the Duplication Detector and trawled through each online source, and removed or rephrased those pieces which seemed to too closely paraphrase the source material. I have also read through the offline sources and checked for similar. The article is "largely a narrative told with statistics" – Cricket tends to be, and is given relatively sparse written coverage, particularly county cricket. As always, all comments, advice and question are welcome.  Harrias  talk 14:48, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Source review - spotchecks not done. Nikkimaria (talk) 15:18, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Be consistent in what is wikilinked when in citations
 * FN 112: formatting doesn't match other newspaper refs. Nikkimaria (talk) 15:18, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Fixed reference 112; wikilinks have been cleaned up so that items are linked on their first occurence in citations, thereafter they are not linked: is that okay?  Harrias  talk 16:39, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Yep, that's fine. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:27, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Comments –
 * Could link Trescothick in the lead, if he isn't already (I didn't notice a link).
 * Good spot, fixed now.  Harrias  talk 20:39, 12 October 2011 (UTC)


 * County Championship: "with Craig Kieswetter and Arul Suppiah both being awarded their county caps after passing the total." This is one of those awkward "with ... -ing" connections that are seen sometimes. It would be better to avoid this structure if possible.
 * Tried to fix this, how does it look now?  Harrias  talk 20:39, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * It now says "who were both being awarded their county caps after passing the total." That could probably do without "being" for overall sentence flow.  Giants2008  ( 27 and counting ) 02:06, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
 * How embarrassing! Fixed now.  Harrias  talk 09:06, 15 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Friends Provident Trophy: Minor, but the semi-colon before "three more than there should have been" should probably just be a regular comma.
 * Done.  Harrias  talk 20:39, 12 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Twenty20 Cup: "After the Indian Premier League's second season demonstrated the importance of spin bowling in Twenty20 cricket, and Somerset's lack of a front-line spin bowler". Confusing sentence, especially if Somerset don't play in the IPL. Is it supposed to be "and with Somerset's lack of a front-line spin bowler"?  Giants2008  ( 27 and counting ) 15:35, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah. I can see what you mean, but I can't quite see at the moment how to rephrase it. I'll keep looking at it!  Harrias  talk 20:39, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Changed to "and due to Somerset's lack.." how does that read for you?  Harrias  talk 12:37, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Support. I supported at the last FAC and looked through a diff just now; I think this is a fine, thorough article. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:06, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Overall, this is a good article and were I to write an article of this type I would certainly use this as a template. For the most part the content is there (the only significant absence I can see is the lack of an aftermath section or something similar) but the prose could use a bit more polish. Nev1 (talk) 14:34, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Comments
 * In the lead "first division" is lower case, whereas the background section "First Division" and "Second Division" are used. In the County Championship section, "Division One" is used.
 * The lead discusses the English cricket season, but to anyone not familiar when that is there's nothing to indicate the timescale. However, it's likely that anyone coming across this article will already be familiar with cricket, so perhaps it's not an issue.
 * Maybe it needs to be made explicit that Taunton is Somerset's home ground.
 * "Having been promoted from the Second Division of the County Championship in 2007, Somerset had looked at times like winning the 2008 County Championship in their first season in the First Division.": Could "Having been" at the start be dispensed with? I'm not keen on the repetition of "first", also was 2008 the first time the club had been in the first division since the introduction of a two-tier county championship? If so I think it could be made a bit clearer.
 * " In one-day cricket, David Foot, writing in Wisden, claimed that too many of the Somerset batsmen had "lost their way"": it feels a bit disjointed, I'd move "in one-day cricket" to after "lost their way".
 * Which two months did Stiff initially sign for?
 * When discussing which players had left the club before the start of the season, do you think it's worth qualifying their playing role, ie: "All-rounder Ian Blackwell, captain of the side..."? Maybe include some more information; Parsons was 35(?) but Francis was 27 so why did he retire?
 * What's the source for the 2009 squad?
 * Can the linking in the squad table be trimmed? I don’t think the reader needs 13 links to England.
 * " Murray Goodwin's score of 344 not out in that match was the sixth highest score by a batsman in the history of the competition": not keen on the repetition of "score", perhaps swap the first one for "innings"?
 * " The batting conditions helped three of Somerset's batsmen pass 1,000 first-class runs in the season": a bit repetitious, maybe start with "The home conditions"?
 * "... who were both awarded their county caps after passing the total": a total is something that is complete, so as Suppiah and Kieswetter went on to score more than 1,000 I'd replace "total" with "landmark".
 * "... taking 54 wickets in the County Championship, more than any other bowler in the first division of the competition": I think "of the competition" is redundant here.
 * " Thomas took 35 wickets, his highest total in an English domestic season,[47] and Stiff took 31, more than quadrupling his career first-class wicket total": repetition of total.
 * " Somerset lacked an effective spin bowler in 2009 following the departure of Ian Blackwell the previous season, and the spinners combined only claimed 31 wickets for the county ": "for the county" strikes me as redundant.
 * " reaching the milestone earlier in an English season than any player previously": this is just a bit clunky and surely could be rephrased.
 * " Somerset next picked up victories at Yorkshire and Sussex": they may have "picked up victories against Yorkshire and Sussex", or "picked up away victories against Yorkshire and Sussex", but not "at".
 * The colouring of the tables isn't explained anywhere, and while readers will no doubt be able to work out that wins are green, losses are red, not everyone will know that it means Sussex and Worcestershire got relegated from the first division of the County Championship.
 * " Two further victories ensured that Somerset would enter their final match of the season with a chance to win the title": "would enter" sounds like it was hypothetical, "entered" is definite.
 * I feel like the article might benefit from an aftermath section. For example, Kieswetter's performance in the 2009 season caught the eye of the England selectors. The article already says that Caddick and Langer announced they would retire at the end of the season, but did anyone else? Who was out of contract, who had theirs renewed? What did the club do about its spin bowlers? When was Trescothick named Langer's successor?
 * Is there anything on the club's finances in 2009, or the state of attendance?
 * Thanks for your comments: they look really helpful! I'm going to be a bit busy over the next few days, so it might be the weekend before I have time to make changes to the article.  Harrias  talk 16:57, 31 October 2011 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.