Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/Ian Johnson (cricketer)

Ian Johnson (cricketer)
This nomination predates the introduction in April 2014 of article-specific subpages for nominations and has been created from the edit history of Today's featured article/requests. 
 * This is the archived discussion of the TFAR nomination for the article below. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/requests). Please do not modify this page unless you are renominating the article at TFAR. For renominations, please add   to the top of the discussion and   at the bottom, then complete a new nomination underneath. To do this, see the instructions at TFAR nom/doc.

The result was: not scheduled by BencherliteTalk 22:25, 21 November 2013‎ (UTC)



Ian Johnson (1917–98) was an Australian cricketer who took 109 wickets and scored 1,000 runs in 45 Test matches between 1946 and 1956. Primarily an off-spinner, he also captained Australia in 17 matches, winning seven and losing five. Johnson made his debut for Victoria in the 1935–36 season at the age of 17 but did not establish a permanent place in the team until 1939–40. After his career was interrupted by the Second World War, he was part of Donald Bradman's Invincibles team which was undefeated on tour in England in 1948. Later, Johnson was controversially appointed Australian captain; although the team were defeated in his first series in charge, the tour of the West Indies that followed was a cricketing and diplomatic triumph for him. After further series in charge, he retired aged 39. He later worked as a commentator and, in 1957, he was appointed Secretary of the Melbourne Cricket Club. Urbane, well-spoken and popular with his opponents and the public, he was seen by his team mates as a disciplinarian and his natural optimism was often seen as naive. In 1982 he was honoured with a CBE.

Date of birth (1 pt), 2008 FA (2), - or should we wait for 2017? There was another cricketer but I forgot when exactly. I don't know a thing about cricket and will first ask the author to trim, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:20, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Blurb currently 1,350 characters i.e. 150 characters too long. BencherliteTalk 09:06, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for pointing out how much too long the blurb is. I believe the (contacted) author would be the the best to trim. If nothing happens in the next days, I will try. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:52, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for trimming the blurb. It reads fine to me. I would be pleased to have this on the main page whenever it was thought suitable. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 02:27, 19 November 2013 (UTC)


 * The handy thing about having archives of every TFA is you can find out exactly when the last cricketer ran, without having to rely on your memory. Bart King ran on 19th October; the most recent TFA sports bio is Faith Leech, today (13th November), so a 2 point penalty means 1 point. For general information, cricket has been the sport most often appearing at TFA in 2013 (see list below). This may be because there are more cricket-related biographies than any other sport: User:Bencherlite/TFA notepad.  There have been comments here and at main page talk about "too much cricket" but a discussion here should show what the general feeling is for this particular article.


 * Cricket articles in 2013 (5): Adelaide leak (England v Australia), Percy Fender (England), Leg before wicket (laws of the game), Hedley Verity (England), Bart King (American)
 * American football (2): 2005 Sugar Bowl, Heidi Game
 * Baseball (3): Thurman Tucker, Youngstown Ohio Works, Bob Feller
 * Basketball (2): Otto Graham, Juwan Howard
 * Football (3): Liverpool FC in Europe, 1923 FA Cup Final, History of Arsenal F.C. (1886–1966)
 * Formula 1 (2): 1995 Japanese Grand Prix, 2008 Hungarian Grand Prix
 * Ice hockey (3 days, 4 articles) : Nikita Filatov, Henrik Sedin and Daniel Sedin (double TFA), History of the National Hockey League (1942–1967)
 * Other: Cotswold Olimpick Games, Lynn Hill (climbing), Cycling at the 2008 Summer Olympics – Women's road race, SummerSlam (2003) (wrestling), Faith Leech (swimming)


 * Hope this helps. BencherliteTalk 09:06, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that also. In the chart, I deducted 2 points for "similar article" without looking, as you will have noticed. - I just ran into the article - via today's - and saw the date. We can wait for the centenary, as said above, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:52, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I shortened the blurb, reducing the cricket details at the beginning. Victory and loss is for everybody ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:49, 15 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Support, educational and encyclopedic. Incredibly meticulous referencing and citation standards. High quality article, has had three (3) levels of quality review: Peer Review, Promoted to Featured Article, Promoted to Featured Topic. Cheers, &mdash; Cirt (talk) 17:02, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Oppose: This may sound a little strange coming from me (I am the primary author of four of the above five cricket articles!), but I think we've had enough cricket this year. If we are to have a sports article, maybe an American article would be better. As for this particular article, assuming we are all still here in 2017, perhaps we should wait for the centenary? And if we are to have cricketers, perhaps some who are not from England or Australia (along the lines of Bart King) would be better. Sarastro1 (talk) 21:24, 15 November 2013 (UTC)