Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cricket/Archive 27

Preparing for the World Cup
When the World Cup begins it should feature on the Main Page as part of "In the News", as a current event we thus need to complete preparations on the 2007 Cricket World Cup page and make it ready for constant updating. Thus we should be able to fill in the results of every match in the few hours after the match is finished. Also it is important we get some Cricket articles to FA for the sake of the World Cup and having some articles there. Cricket World Cup is on Peer Review and is the best one to start with. If you have a good picture a Featured Picture would be nice too. Do you think it'll be necessary to create main articles with more detailed match summaries? Like 2007 Cricket World Cup group stage and 2007 Cricket World Cup Super Eights and 2007 Cricket World Cup finals, or are we going to put all details right into 2007 Cricket World Cup?  Noble eagle  [TALK] [C] 05:33, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

no i dont think its necessary to make main articles for those, just put the results for the matches and make a section for the semi-final and the final. But I was thinking more of getting the world cup article as "Today's featured article" on the day of the start of the world cup or the final of the world cup and the 2007 world cup article being in the news section at the same time.--Thugchildz

Yes, I think that's still within reach, the Peer Review went well, no huge objections. Just need to trim the History section and I think it'll be ready for FAC.  Noble eagle  [TALK] [C] 05:48, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

List of Cricket World Cup records
I recently created and populated this list with almost everything there is on the topic on Cricinfo? I have little to no experience with lists and would like to know what this list needs to get to FL like so many other Cricket-related lists. After I filled it all in I saw the FL List of One-day International records, which takes a different format but covers less specific records. Is it necessary to shape the page in the same way as List of ODI records?  Noble eagle  [TALK] [C] 05:36, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Samuel Britcher
This article was vandalised four times last week. Can we semi protect it for a few days. Tintin 02:05, 26 January 2007 (UTC)


 * As the article says: Little is known of Mr Britcher personally but his importance to the study of cricket history and statistics cannot be understated. Which makes it surprising that whoever evaluated the article assessed its importance as "Low". I'd have thought that it should be at least "Mid". (It's frustrating that those assessing articles rarely seem to record the reasons for their assessment on the article's Talk page.) JH 10:03, 26 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I think all of the articles that have been reviewed need to be re-reviewed. Some of the ratings are laughable, especially where incomplete articles are given high quality ratings. In my opinion, the people who have done these reviews are focused on the last 25 years, a common syndrome on Wikipedia.  Britcher has significance in the historical sphere but the scale of his contributions was not great and I agree with John that he should be rated medium importance: I would rate Haygarth and Buckley as high importance among statisticians.
 * I agree with Tintin that the Britcher article needs protection. --BlackJack | talk page 07:06, 2 February 2007 (UTC)


 * It was vandalised only by one person/IP address. If he/she does it one more time, I'll block him/her instantly. I don't think there is a need for protection unless many vandals start to arrive. GizzaChat  &#169; 08:23, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Ok....I sprotected it...Normally they don't let you sprotect things unless it is vandalised about 25+ times a day at WP:RFPP (in the spirit of letting everybody edit), but I guess when you go shopping for admins who edit the same topics, they probably will just do it to keep things quiet....Blnguyen (bananabucket) 08:27, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Cricket World Cup FAC
Is it time to put Cricket World Cup for FAC? Does anyone have objections that need to addressed.  Noble eagle  [TALK] [C] 06:18, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

The article have been nominated, and already there have been objections and constructive critisisms but all of them have addressed! So please express your views here! -Thugchildz


 * I'm going to comment here discretely, to not get too much negative flak on the main discussion page as is. I think you have to tighten up your stomach up because you are going to cop a lot of stick about the clunkiness of the sentences, awkward English etc. This is almost normal for everybody, unless they have written many FAs and easily too... I am going to fix a few random examples, and explain in the edit summary. If you see Ian Thorpe and its FAC, I got slaughtered a lot even after I fixed it and needed others to fix it for me. You should probably enlist the help of a good copyeditor like Nichalp or ALoan. User:Tony1 is certain to find problems with this that I cannot, and it may be useful to read his FA guide on his userpage and do the exercises. I'm not sure, but perhaps when an articlee is supported by a Wikiproject, a bit of one eyed voting may give it an edge! Blnguyen (bananabucket) 02:26, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The other thing is the sources. Half of the statements in there are not supported by the sources! Especially the history section, there is a link to the 96SF and 03F scorecard and the other results are not sourced. The link in the 99 part is also not good enough since it is taken from a school assignment. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 02:26, 29 January 2007 (UTC)


 * if any one can provide better sources that would be good--Thugchildz

Thanks for the compliment above :) I have been away for a few days and have not had a chance to review the article, but will do what I can. Where results are referenced, it should be an easy matter to add a footnote to the relevant scorecard at Cricinfo or CricketArchive. -- ALoan (Talk) 11:36, 29 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Nichalp told me he's going on vacation till the 4th of Feb.  Noble eagle  [TALK] [C] 21:53, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Wisden Trophy
I haven't a clue when it comes to images on WP. Can someone find an image for the trophy please? --Dweller 13:53, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

ICC Champions Trophy Squad templates
AMBerry has been creating a template similar to the WC template, eg, see Harbhajan Singh, for each of the countries. I have asked him to make a comment here also. Personally I do not feel that we should have templates for Champions Trophy as it is biennial, and we would end up with some players with 4 Templates on the page, and then for people who play for 15 years, in the future we would have 7 templates and it would clutter up the page too much. In addition, we also already have the WC templates, and the WC is held at a much, much higher level than any other ODI tournaments. For consistency, we would then in future end up with a WC and ICCCT template for each edition, and for some players, that may give eight templates or so (Ponting/Murali - WC: 96 99 03 07; ICCCT 00 02 04 06. I think that would be excessive, and a restriction to the WC is appropriate. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 23:05, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Agreed, having ICC templates is excessive. I saw them pop up on a few articles on my watchlist and thought it a bit odd. The football project limits player articles to just WC templates - 4 years also. HornetMike 23:30, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Too many templates unbalances articles towards a formulaic stats-based format instead of a literate article-based encyclopedia. If there's a reference in the article to a cricketer being a member of a particular tour, team or squad, and then an article on that tour, team or squad, isn't that enough? Johnlp 23:37, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't even think we should have Cricket World Cup squad templates. Categories are a much better way to do this. Stephen Turner (Talk) 00:00, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
 * We have Category:World Cup cricketers of Australia and Category:Cricketers at the 2003 Cricket World Cup, etc, (and they aren't properly populated yet) but it depends on whether we want to have Category:Cricketers at the 2003 Cricket World Cup for Australia etc, which has the intersection of year and nationality. Categorising by year and nationality is common, but I have never seen them categorised together....Blnguyen (bananabucket) 00:06, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
 * We can easily create such cats (and make them subcats of the other cats you've mentioned). Stephen Turner (Talk) 00:22, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Ok then, it's 4-0 at the moment to not have the ICCCT templates. When people are satisfied, I'll rollback the templates to make things fast....Blnguyen (bananabucket) 00:25, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Personally, I like categories. Templates for this would be overkill, given Ponting and a number of others would end up with a gazillion templates. Categories are best in this situation, in my opinion. Cheers, Daniel.Bryant 06:40, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I support removing all the templates related to participation in a cricket tournamentm, whether it be the World Cup or the Champions Trophy. Categories are good enough. GizzaChat  &#169; 06:44, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Ok, seeing as there seems to be a strong feeling against the ICCCT templates at least, I am going to rollback the edits, to make things nice and easy - Not as a snub to AMBerry. If the consensus turns somehow, I will rollback myself, or other admins feel free to roll me back. Thanks, Blnguyen (bananabucket) 06:54, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete Champions Trophy and World Cup squad templates in my view. Per above opinions, categories are good enough.  — N o b l e e a g l e  [TALK]  [C] 07:08, 2 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Agree - the prose in the articles ought to mention which competitions they played in, and/or a separarate article for the competition (or the team at the competition) can list the players, and/or categories. No need for these templates, for this or any other competition.  I shall now wheel out my favourite examples of an over-templated article:  Ian Botham.  Sigh.  -- ALoan (Talk) 14:50, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Ok, does anybody want to keep the CWC templates either? Last call.....Blnguyen (bananabucket) 06:40, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
 * keep the CWC world cup templates, it won't get that big, comes onces in 4 years and you could just "hide it". its a bigger deal to play in the world cup than in ct so just keep them —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Thugchildz (talk • contribs) 06:46, 5 February 2007 (UTC).

The issue is flaring up again, as India announced its 15 man squad, and the templates are creeping back in. The deadline to name the players is today. It's already overwhelmed Ajit Agarkar. Time to make a decision on the WC ones too. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 04:03, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep them but make it so that it has a show button and if clicked it will show otherwise its in hide.--Thugchildz

I agree completely with User:DaGizza. The squad templates serve little to no navigational purpose. --mdmanser 07:21, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Looks like removal. Most people are either unimpressed or actively want them removed. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 07:26, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I certainly dislike them. I think categories serve the same purpose much less intrusively. Stephen Turner (Talk) 09:29, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I'd like them kept, they're a handy navigational tool in my opinion. It should however be limited to one per page, many Indian players for example currently have templates for both the 2003 and 2007 WC .... so in cases like that perhaps we should delete the former. Many of the associate country's player pages have pretty bare pages so templates can certainly improve them, in the cases of Ireland and Bermuda who are in their first World Cups I think they should have templates as it is a signifigant for them. I've just created a template for the Bermudians but if u feel that it is not needed than I will be happy to remove them for you. Cheers Crickettragic (Talk) 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * That would make inconsistencies though. Yuvraj Singh for example would have his 2003 template deleted as he is playing again this year, while Mohammad Kaif would keep the 2003 template, since he is now dropped. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 23:08, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't like them. They probably do serve a purpose during the tournament, but I see little point in them after that. HornetMike 10:42, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Season and Tour Reviews
I should add this to the recent updates section but I think it's too big. I've been creating hundreds of quick copy stubs offline and a lot of these have been uploaded in the last few days. As a result, the status of season review articles now is that we have one for every first-class season in each of England, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Zimbabwe. South Africa has every season to 1920 and every season since 1965 plus a handful in between. Australia has a few seasons before 1965 and everything since 1965. India, New Zealand and West Indies each have all seasons since 1965.

As the period before 1965 interests me, I want to take a bit more time over the remainder and so in the short term I'm turning my attention back to the tour reviews with the intention of placing a stub for every Test tour of the last forty years. I've got a template for this and with some summary data from Wisden I hope to be able to do a bulk upload fairly soon. I've recently added or edited articles re every Australian tour of England and re every Test tour of Bangladesh. --BlackJack | talk page 17:25, 14 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Wow! Good work! Stephen Turner (Talk) 21:25, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Seconded; thank you! Loganberry (Talk) 16:53, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Update. India and South Africa now have all seasons. West Indies has everything up to 1945 and everything since 1965. New Zealand has everything since the Plunket began in 1906. Australia has everything since the Sheffield began in 1892. I've also been adding some of the modern tours but still a long way to go with that. --BlackJack | talk page 22:23, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Latest Update. All first-class seasons worldwide now have at least a stub for development as a review article. All international tours of England and Pakistan have stubs or articles. I'm currently tidying up the non-Test tours of Ceylon/Sri Lanka and then of South Africa, Zimbabwe and Bangladesh before I go on to the other four major countries. --BlackJack | talk page 10:55, 3 February 2007 (UTC) PS: does anyone think this talk page needs an archive doing? --BlackJack | talk page 10:55, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Another Update. Apart from a number of early tours by England of Australia, which I am reading about at the moment, we now have a tour article or stub for every first-class tour since 1859. The missing ones are England tours of Australia up to 1936 and I hope to create these quite soon. --BlackJack | talk page 20:43, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Mark Benson
Am I the only one to be amused by the tremendous amount of activity going on with this article? Maybe some of this energy could be diverted to other needy biography articles! Johnlp 12:59, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't mind it at all. One of the things I like about Wikipedia is the effort people put into to polishing obscure articles. HornetMike 13:39, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree with Mike. Let people work on whatever interests them. It's a pity the photos in that article are all copyvios though... Stephen Turner (Talk) 17:49, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I said I was amused by it, and I'm not being censorious at all. Of course people should do what interests them. Lighten up a little, chaps. Or isn't one allowed to point out things that amuse? Johnlp 18:11, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

GA Nomination for West Indian cricket team in England in 1988
Just to say that User:The Rambling Man and I have joint nom'd this article for GA. --Dweller 20:04, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
 * It would be good if someone from this WikiProject could assess the article on its talk page. Ta. --Dweller 09:29, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

team incons
i just noticed there two kinds of team templates that are basically the same like and  they are basically th same but there's now two kinds of templates the one with c at the end and ones with cr in the beginning. To me the one with the c at the end is easier as people can guess the three letters easily. so can we just re-direct all the cr templates to the c templates?--Thugchildz
 * I don't see what benefit the redirect will do. It just uses more computer resources. I also like the style, and in some articles I edited I replaced the other style to this. However, I noticed that some countries don't have this style but only the {cr}.--Nitsansh 01:46, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
 * since some articles use the cr and some uses the c we should redirect the cr template links to the c and for those who dont have a c template we could just copy the cr to the c template. So we wont have two sets of templates basically for the same thing.--Thugchildz

Mass changes in selection for England Test team
Hi, in working on the GA candidate article, I noticed that between the 3rd and 4th Tests of 1988, England made seven changes to their XI. Is there a clever website that'll tell me if (as I suspect) that's without parallel for England since 1946? --Dweller 09:15, 6 February 2007 (UTC)


 * You could try asking the quiz question: when did England make the most changes between its sides for consecutive matches in a Test series? :) -- ALoan (Talk) 11:53, 6 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Yeah, that was my first idea, but I haven't a clue about WillE's current tester! --Dweller 12:13, 6 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Did it happen in 1946 ? If it is across two series, there are some which are more recent than 1946. For instance, Madras 1951-52 and Leeds 1952 have only three players in common. Tintin 12:14, 6 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks. (NB I only said 1946 as a shorthand for "since the second world war".) Any others with 7 or 8 changes since WWII? --Dweller 12:19, 6 February 2007 (UTC)


 * That England team in Madras has a very unfamiliar look to it. Was it selected from a squad weakened by withdrawals/injury/illness/bad form or one deliberately selected weak in the first place? --Dweller 12:23, 6 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, there was Ted Graveney and Brian Statham, at least; but England deservedly lost by an innings. I believe that was India's first Test victory (see the lead of Vijay Hazare, although I doubt the death of George VI on the first day of play had much to do with it...) -- ALoan (Talk) 16:31, 6 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I have looked at only a few, but there is also an instance of 7 between the last Test of 1963 and the first of 1963-64, and 8 between the last of 1963-64 and the first of 1964. Since England used to send second XIs to the subcontinent till the 1970s (this explains the changes between the 1951-2 and 1952 sides), there could be some more like these, if you consider the instances across series. http://howstat.com.au/cricket/Statistics/Countries/CountryPlayerChart.asp is a good source for checking this sort of this. Tintin 12:26, 6 February 2007 (UTC)


 * contains the answer to the question. Tintin 12:28, 6 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Ah, thanks - interesting commentary on the 1884 Australian player dispute, the impact of WSC in West Indies, and the 1988 English Summer of four captains in the replies too... -- ALoan (Talk) 16:54, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Cricket articles under attack again
I have just found the following on my talk page from someone called Nitsansh who has evidently interfered with cricket articles previously:


 * IMO, creating articles without any useful content, such as West Indian cricket team in England in 2000, is wrong. When a reader follows a blue link, he expects to see a real article. These articles are just waste of time, they better not exist until someone has the time to make them useful.
 * BTW: the article New Zealand cricket team in Australia in 2006-07 was proposed to speedy delete, because there is no evidence this tour ever existed. --Nitsansh 19:35, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Strange how so many people were today intrigued by an imaginary game in Brisbane. Apart from his powers of imagination, the tone used by this character is unacceptable and he should be warned by an admin. He is in breach of Stub as the articles in question are perfectly legitimate stubs that are correctly categorised and contain valid references. --BlackJack | talk page 20:49, 6 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I confess to having some sympathy with the view he expresses in his first paragraph. I'm not convinced that a totally "empty" stub serves any useful purpose. If the stubs contained only a sentence or two, prior to something fuller being written, then I'd be happier. I've no sympathy at all with his eecond paragraph, which of course is total nonsense. JH 20:56, 6 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Yup, I can certainly see where this is coming from. These two articles are dangerously on the edge of Very short articles providing little or no context (CSD A7), especially West Indian cricket team in England in 2000. I must say, if I stumbled across these articles in a different sport, I'd be tempted to Speedy or Afd them. →Ollie (talk • contribs) 23:22, 6 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I would, unless something changes or is likely to do so. It is deletable speedily as only consisting of a rephrasing of the title (no context) and also as only external links. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 02:27, 7 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I've nothing against the stubs existing, but several seem short even for a stub and still need some more content in. It does look ugly when the references and external links sections are twice as long as the actual article. Andrew nixon 00:03, 7 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Check West Indian cricket team in England in 2004 for example. This is a very good stub. Despite being short, it contains all the basic information, and also links to full results. The other article I mentioned gives no information except for the fact that there was a tour of team A in country B in year X. when a reader sees an article named "West Indies in England in 2000" I think he expects to see article with some "beef". It doesn't help the wikipedians either, because now it's impossible to see which articles have content in them and which don't. In short, it's lot of quantity with very little quality.


 * About the so-called New Zealand tour in Australia in 2006-07... I know that New Zealand play in Australia but I don't consider that a tour because it's a tri-nation series. I don't see reference to that as a tour in websites such as cricinfo or cricketarchive. Since an article on the Commonwealth Bank Series allready exist there's no need for the same article under the name "New Zealand in Australia".--Nitsansh 02:23, 7 February 2007 (UTC)


 * If the consensus is against having extremely small stubs, what are the alternatives ? (a) Give some time, say three or four weeks, for people to add some basic data in it. (b) If no one has the patience to wait that long, move to BlackJack's user space and move it back to main space as the stubs are expanded. Speedying is not a nice solution considering that they are not "orphans". Tintin 05:37, 7 February 2007 (UTC)


 * People rarely go through categories to delet stuff, so if it wasn't stopped at the door, likely nobody will. However, if they were tagged, it would be likely to be deleted. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 05:47, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

This is all because some meddler has come along who writes things like "IMO" and "they better not". Until then, everyone was quite happy to sit and watch me do all the hard work of creating articles about first-class seasons and tours worldwide because they were not prepared to do it themselves, although several people like to moan about lack of global coverage. The only way to create a vast number of tour and season articles is by deciding on a simple format and using parameters to amend each one before doing a bulk upload. I hadn't time to go into detail at that stage and the idea of stubs is that they will be developed in due course. I strongly recommend that this is allowed to blow over and that we maintain vigilance against people who do not have the best interests of the project at heart. I have had to revert several of Nitshansh's "edits" and I suggest he is ignoring project consensus on the structure of the cricket project.

I further recommend that people make use of the new tour and season articles and develop them, as I am going to do myself. But I would remind everyone that Rome was not built in a day. --BlackJack | talk page 07:31, 7 February 2007 (UTC)


 * BlackJack, we appreciate your effort - we really do - but the problem is that very short articles like West Indian cricket team in England in 2000 are liable to be deleted as they have essentially no content. I have expanded this as an example of how it could look, but even a few banal sentences would help: for example:


 * West Indies played five Tests against England. In June, West Indies won the 1st Test at Edgbaston convincingly, by an innings and 93 runs. Despite scoring only 134 in their first innings, England bowled West Indies out for 54 in their second innings, to win the 2nd Test at Lord's by 2 wickets, and level the series.  After a triangular ODI series involving Zimbabwe in July, the Test series concluded in August.  The 3rd Test at Old Trafford was drawn,  and West Indies won a one-off one-day match against Scotland, on 13 August 2000.  However, England won both the 4th Test at Headingley and the 5th Test at the Oval convincingly,  to record a 3-1 series victory, England's first against West Indies since 1969.  The ball dominated the bat for most of the series, and a hallmark of the series was the inconsistency of the West Indies batting.


 * That would be ever so much better. I realise that this requires substantially more effort than the articles that you have been creating to date, but I trust you realise that there is much more meat to them.  Of course, that kind of article remains very sketchy and need much more work, but it is, at least, a short summary of the tour. -- ALoan (Talk) 12:36, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I think ALoan has shown the positive response that is required here. If someone says they are unhappy about a particular article, then one of us must deal with that article. And there is nothing banal about what he has input to expand the WI 2000 article. The point about the stubs for seasons as well as tours is that they are placemarkers which we as a project require (otherwise why create any season or tour reviews at all?) and which we as a project intend to develop in due course or, in particular cases like WI 2000, as and when required.

I have a theory about Wikipedia members which is that the vast majority do not like creating articles and are much happier working with something that is already in place and has already got its categories and key references. If a large number of articles is needed as a pre-condition for contributions by this majority then someone has to do the hard work and get the things created so that the project can move forward. We now have an article of some description for every single first-class season worldwide and for every first-class or ListA tour worldwide apart from the early England tours of Australia which I am taking more time over.

I should point out by the way that some first-class or ListA tours may have slipped through the net. Tintin has already done some good work on the Parsee tour in 1886 and as a result I think there was a subsequent tour which I haven't included. --BlackJack | talk page 06:27, 8 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, it would be a nice job for someone to work through the CricketArchive and Cricinfo archives for the recent tours, at least, and write something up like I have for West Indian cricket team in England in 2000. I meant to write a few sentences (like the ones above) just based on the scorecards, to show how easy it was, but found myself going to town a bit.  The point I was trying to make is that it is very easy to write something entirely banal and derivative, simply based on the scorecards, without having to do much research, which is still substantially better than the bare articles as they stand at the moment.  -- ALoan (Talk) 10:38, 8 February 2007 (UTC)


 * When I've succeeded with securing GA status for the West Indian tour of England in 1988, I'll help. --Dweller 11:30, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

The History of Cricket articles
Currently we have articles covering periods in cricket history up to 1815, after which we have season by season articles instead. It seems to me that "overview" articles for, say, 1816-1864, 1865-1899, and so forth would still be useful. There's nowhere at the moment where one can mention the importance of the spread of the railways, for instance, which reduced journeys that previously would have taken days to hours, and hence made matches such as Surrey v Yorkshire a really practical proposition for the first time. (As well as greatly increasing the number of potential spectators.) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jhall1 (talk • contribs) 21:04, 6 February 2007 (UTC).


 * I agree. The whole period from the formation of MCC and foundation of Lord's in 1787 until about 1890 is completely underdeveloped at present.  If we are serious about being a cricket project, this era should be our next top priority. --BlackJack | talk page 21:09, 6 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Indeed. An overview of the just-pre-war and post-war eras would be good also. (These may exist already, I don't know). It would a good way to get the 'bigger picture' of worldwide happenings in cricket. You can point people at the more detailed specific articles for further reading. →Ollie (talk • contribs) 23:17, 6 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I think the first step should be to decide what the breakdown into time periods should be. I'd suggest:


 * 1816-1863 - because 1864 arguably saw the beginning of the "modern" game, with the legalisation of overarm bowling, Grace's first "big" match, and Wisden's first edition.
 * 1864-1889 - because 1890 saw the first official County Championship and the introduction of qualification rules.
 * 1890-1918
 * 1919-1945
 * 1946-1969 - with 1970 being notable for the cancellation of the SA tour of England
 * 1970 to the present day


 * That gives roughly equal sized and manageable "chunks". JH 10:03, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Agree with all, except I think the last cut-off should be with the advent of World Series Cricket. --Dweller 10:10, 7 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Agree with most, with some exceptions. I think there should be a cut off round about 1965, as this is when the ICC began to expand to include more than just test nations. The whole South Africa being kicked out affair probably is notable enough for it's own article. The incidents started in 1968 and finished in 1972 with the cancellation of the South African tour of Australia. Which leaves 1972 onwards. Way too much has happened for it to be condensed into one article - three new test nations, reinstatement of South Africa, expansion of ODI cricket, World Series Cricket, introduction of Twenty20, etc... Andrew nixon 11:19, 7 February 2007 (UTC)


 * We already have 1969 as a cut-off for categories (based on some discussion a fair while ago - SA suspended, domestic limited overs introduced, etc.). It seems sensible to have the same cut-off for articles, since any cut-off is going to be arbitrary anyway. Sam Vimes | Address me 11:58, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
 * That seems fair enough. Consistency is important and there's no use redoing good work, when there's so much that's blank to fill in. --Dweller 13:56, 7 February 2007 (UTC)


 * However, as pointed out, a lot has happened in cricket since 1970. Perhaps a further arbitrary split is in order? →Ollie (talk • contribs) 14:00, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps 1991/92? South Africa reinstated, Zimbabwe given Test status, first coloured clothing world cup... Andrew nixon 14:33, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

If nobody beats me to it, I'll see if I can write an article on the 1816-63 period over the weekend. My initial thoughts on topics to include are given below. Please feel free to suggest additions.


 * roundarm (link to roundarm bowling) - players had been experimenting, banned 1816, legalised 1835
 * changes in Laws, equipment and attire
 * All-England and United All-England XIs (link to existing article)
 * spread of railway network in second half of this period permitting matches between widely separated opponents and facilitating larger crowds
 * foundation of some county clubs and growth in county matches
 * MCC developments (including suppression of gambling)
 * the Public Schools (Rugby, Eton, Harrow, etc) and Oxford and Cambridge universities
 * mention leading players and clubs at various times (eg Kent's great period in the 1830s)
 * developments outside England

References to include "Dates in Cricket History" article that appears now and then in Wisden. JH 20:04, 7 February 2007 (UTC)


 * The main two events for the "developments outside England" section would be the start of first-class cricket in Australia (1850 from memory) and the first international between the USA and Canada in 1844. Andrew nixon 20:30, 7 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I would certainly have included the former, but might easily have overlooked the latter. JH 20:47, 7 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Cricinfo suggests:


 * 1827 First Oxford v Cambridge match, at Lord's
 * 1836 First North v South match
 * c.1836 Batting pads invented
 * 1845 First match at The Oval
 * 1849 First Yorkshire v Lancashire
 * 1850 Wicket-keeping gloves first used
 * 1853 First "champion county": Nottinghamshire
 * 1858 First recorded hat trick (hat actually presented to the bowler for taking wickets with three consecutive balls)
 * 1859 First England touring team, to US and Canada


 * plus a few others. See also this for codification of equipment and dimensions. -- ALoan (Talk) 21:33, 7 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for those. I'll also be using and  JH 22:30, 7 February 2007 (UTC)


 * My cricinfo list seems to be subset of your first one. Good luck! -- ALoan (Talk) 22:42, 7 February 2007 (UTC)


 * It should be pointed out that the Yorkshire v Lancashire match in 1849 did not feature the present day Lancashire County Cricket Club. The first match between the two teams that exist now took place in 1867. It's a common mistake. Andrew nixon 22:57, 7 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I thought that might be the case. Indeed, Lancashire County Cricket Club says it was really Sheffield Cricket Club against Manchester Cricket Club, but still the first "Roses Match". -- ALoan (Talk) 23:34, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Until yesterday, I had somehow been unaware that there was already an article Overview of English cricket 1816 - 1918. I don't want to duplicate what is already there, so I would like to take that article as a starting point. I'd like to split it into two - 1816-1863 and 1864-1918 - as I think otherwise it could get too long. I'd also like to rename it from "Overview" to "History", because (1) I hope that it will eventually be a bit more substantial than just an overview and (2) people searching for articles on cricket history are more likely to use "history" as a search term than "overview". There are already articles on cricket history in the main non-English countries, so I would include links to those and restrict myself to English (and Welsh) history. Would people be happy with that? JH (talk page) 09:28, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Bart King
Greetings friends. I have a question about the importance ratings that are included in assessments. I posted it in the assessment section, but wanted to put it here just to be sure the right people saw it. The WP:CRIC standards are fairly clear on how to rate importance. They say that National captains are generally classed as high importance, and players with many tests are generally classed as mid to high importance. My pet project is currently Bart King. As an American he played no Tests, and I'm not sure if he ever captained a US national side. However, based on his position as the preeminent American cricketer of all time is there any support for him being upgraded to "High Importance" on the project scale? Thanks a lot.-- Eva  b  d  19:37, 8 February 2007 (UTC)


 * As I think I said on the article's Talk page a week or two ago, I would certainly rank him as of High importance. Just because players who captained their country or who played losts of Tests should have a certain ranking, surely doesn't mean that others can't also have that rating if they merit it? After all, what about players who preceded Test cricket? What about notable administrators and writers? JH 19:59, 8 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I think it's pretty safe to say that he is of high-importance, for the reasons mentioned here and on the article's talk page. Andrew nixon 20:18, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, folks. I just wanted to ask the project in general in case people had not been to the article to voice any other objections. I wasn't sure if I was being biased about his importance because I'm such a fan.-- Eva  b  d  21:34, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

2006-07 Commonwealth Bank Series
I just edited the most runs/wickets bit in the infobox of this page. I didn't do anything other than update figures, but for some reason it's broken. I checked the page and I can't see what I've done wrong, so would someone check and try to fix it? Many thanks, HornetMike 22:35, 9 February 2007 (UTC)


 * After looking quite hard, I noticed that a ] was missing. No problem - fixed. -- ALoan (Talk) 22:44, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Francis Booker
This page has been vandalised several times by a moron who thinks it's funny that someone he knows has the same name. It's a similar syndrome to Samuel Britcher. Can one of you with admin functions please "sprotect" the page for a few weeks? Thanks. --BlackJack | talk page 12:06, 10 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm keeping an eye on the page and will consider sprotection if the anon continues. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch \ talk 11:00, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Cricket Stubs
There have been calls in the past, notably by Stephen Turner and Alai, to do something about the huge number of cricket stubs (all right, I know most of them were created by me). Following on from Alai's suggestion that we categorise stubs, I've expanded his sub-cats by creating extra ones for history, competitions, terminology, media, administration. I've begun to populate these with the items in the main cricket stub categories and I've reduced the total in there to about 50. I'll continue with it next time I'm on. I have de-stubbed quite a lot of articles that are no longer stubs and I've also had to attend to numerous items that had no categories.

If anyone else would like to get involved in this, all help gratefully accepted. --BlackJack | talk page 14:40, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I've finished categorising or de-stubbing all the main cricket-stub items now and a summary of the stubs is as follows:

Which is a lot of stubs that need development even with the duplicates. The biggies are the players, tours, seasons and teams. We need members to volunteer to take over batches of these and bring them up to article strength. --BlackJack | talk page 20:22, 10 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I'll gladly look over Category:Cricket ground stubs and Category:Cricket terminology stubs and see what I can do with them. →Ollie (talk • contribs) 01:09, 11 February 2007 (UTC)


 * A large number of the English bio stubs will be a result of my continued plod through Worcestershire's players. I do intend eventually to go back and expand some of those into fuller articles, although I simply don't have enough knowledge to do that with a lot of them - the huge mass of 1920s players, for example. For now, though, I'm going to stick mostly with reducing the number of Worcs redlinks, so the number of such stubs will almost certainly increase still further! Loganberry (Talk) 02:00, 11 February 2007 (UTC)


 * This is great work, but I'm afraid you're supposed to get them discussed at WP:WSS/P first. There are conventions about how many articles you need to make a stub category, naming conventions, and that sort of thing. If you don't you'll find they'll soon be discussed less sympathetically at WP:WSS/D. Stephen Turner (Talk) 10:27, 11 February 2007 (UTC)


 * And in fact, I see they're already on the latter page. Stephen Turner (Talk) 10:27, 11 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, I assume your reply is to Jack rather than me, as it was he who subdivided the stubs: I'm merely making use of the results. But as I'm here: I was under the impression that at least england-cricket-bio-stub (which houses the vast majority of my Worcs stubs) had been discussed and accepted already. Should I keep on using it or not? Loganberry (Talk) 00:38, 13 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, my reply was to Jack; apologies if the indentation was misleading. And yes, england-cricket-bio-stub was approved some time ago. (This was an example of how the system ideally works: cricket-stub became too big and cricket-bio-stub was split off; and then that became too big, so the largest countries were split off). Stephen Turner (Talk) 09:31, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Cricket Tournament Infobox Question
(Note this comment was first posted on the FAC). Last night I made a new infobox for the page which was later reverted and somewhat incorporated into the original by Thugzchild. The difference between the two different versions can be seen here and here. I've removed some of the entries from the infobox which are very ambiguous and technically incorrect (there have been more than 97 participants). Given that there have been numerous ways of tournament formatting I simple changed the infobox to read "multiple (see article)". Which version do you think should be used? --mdmanser 00:24, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Well first off, I don't see why there's need to be two different infoboxes that basically does the same thing. Right now the orinal version doesn't have anything ambigous and technically incorrect. There cant be more than 97 because if your not a ICC member you can't qualify for the tournment. The formant of the tournament goes by the current format, "multiple" imo is ambiguous.--Thugchildz
 * How about former ICC members (there are 97 current ones, sure)? There doesn't need to be two boxes - I created the second one for comparison and as a possible future alternative. I think it would be wrong to use the current format in the infobox anyway - it suggests that all tournaments have been played in that manner. Anyway, just my opinion. I hope other editors come in to help resolve this. --mdmanser 00:50, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
 * ICC never had former members(at least that i can think of), members became divided into seperate members though. if you look at Fifa_world_cup it talks about the current format it doesn't even talk about past formats. and thats a section. this format is a quick thing that tells the latest infos. they'll know that different formats were used if they read the section. Also saying 19 participants is technically incorect because you have to count the associates from the qualifying rounds, so 19 total qualifyed while 97 participated --Thugchildz

User:BlackJack
Sadly, he seems to have left Wikipedia. At least, in his latest (last?) message on his Talk page he says so. JH (talk page) 20:42, 11 February 2007 (UTC)


 * That is a very great shame because, for all of his occasional cantankerousnesses, Jack's contribution to this project has been absolutely massive and he has been one of the rare people who give it a sense of momentum and encyclopedic purpose. I hope very much he will reconsider and come back to help populate some of the very many stubs he has created. Johnlp 21:51, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
 * It's a shame, the project needs people like him--Thugchildz


 * Given the message left on his talk page RE the new stubs, I can't really blame him. Once again bureaucracy gets in the way of writing an encyclopedia. →Ollie (talk • contribs) 22:30, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Quite. All it would take is a message starting something like "please can we discuss the new stubs that you have created. Experience tells us that as a rule of thumb it is not helpful to have stubs templates which are used on less than 60 articles..." I hope he comes back. -- ALoan (Talk) 17:24, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Lack of Cricket in Australia article?
An editor has noticed that there is no article for Cricket in Australia and nominated it for the Australian Collaboration of the Fortnight. I find it impossible to believe that there isn't already an article covering this (as opposed to the Australian team or the history of cricket in Australia). Is anyone aware of an article that covers cricket in Australia? --Roisterer 22:20, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Diameter of Bails
There's a question at the reference desk that someone may be able to help with. →Ollie (talk • contribs) 11:28, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Man of the match
Hi. I want a consistent usage for this term; basically is it with or without hyphens? List of cricket terms doesn't include it, so I'm inclined to follow the usage of the generic sports topic Man of the match. Anyone strongly dissent? --Dweller 16:39, 12 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I think it depends whether it's a noun or an adjectival phrase. I would write "The man of the match was Paul Collingwood", but "Collingwood won three successive man-of-the-match awards"; although some people might consider the latter a little old-fashioned. I'm fairly sure the noun would never have hyphens, though no doubt somebody will now prove me wrong. Stephen Turner (Talk) 19:00, 12 February 2007 (UTC)


 * OK, that'll do me. Thanks. --Dweller 21:11, 12 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Of course, there's also women's cricket to consider - this is not a problem for use in specific articles, but the fact that the general article is called Man of the match is, I feel, likely to attract some less than approving attention from some quarter eventually. Loganberry (Talk) 00:44, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

The Quiz
Does anyone know what's happened to the quiz? WillE 22:36, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Typical - soon as I ask it's up and running again... WillE 22:43, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

World Cup, Blnguyen's message and... Paul Collingwood
Now that User:The Rambling Man and I have finished work for the moment on the 1988 West Indians, we're pitching in with Blnguyen's proposal. We've chosen Paul Collingwood as our first project and will try to get it to FA before the World Cup begins. Please help us, as the deadline is short. If sufficient editors pitch in, we may be able to do more than one article. --Dweller 18:06, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm tagging all "facts" with - it worked nicely for the 1988 West Indies article, every time we saw one we knew we needed a decent citation, even if it's just a scorecard from Cricinfo.  Let's do it!  The Rambling Man 18:24, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I'll go through and put in any scorecards etc that we can easily garner from cricinfo or the equally useful cricketarchive.com. к1иg  f1$н   £я5ω1fт  20:05, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Having put in several references, I see there are many more to go, an I think to myself "do we really need so many"? No disrespect intended, Ramblingman, I can see you have spent time tagging each fact, but surely not everything needs tagging? к1иg  f1$н   £я5ω1fт  20:46, 15 February 2007 (UTC)


 * You can never have too many references when going for GA/FA - although SmackBot did just have a field day! →Ollie (talk • contribs) 22:06, 15 February 2007 (UTC)


 * No offence taken. When Dweller and I attacked the Windies 1988 article, it was a useful guide to tag absolutely everything that could be cited.  If things really don't need to be cited then fine, remove the tag, but every assertion of fact ought to be cited if possible, particularly those related to anything with a vagueness of original research.  Anyway, my time spent isn't that important, if this is to get to GA (especially FA) then every atom of the article will be scruitnised, so let's start with too much and prune it back, rather than be embarrasingly short on facts.  The Rambling Man 22:10, 15 February 2007 (UTC)


 * OK I like people referencing articles, its great and fantastic for people doing it. I myself have been on a bit of reference crusade lately, mainly fixing them up, so after checking the Paul Collingwood article, everyone should remember the correct way to reference is to only put the reference at the end of a sentence after the full stop (not midway after a comma). Also while we are doing it, could you use the Citatation templates, Template:Cite news and Template:Cite web. The more details filled in the better with these templates. Nomadtales 23:17, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

The World Cup Super Eights go from March 27 to April 21. All the articles are from the "big eight" teams which are highly unlikely to be knocked out in the group phase. I can't see Bangladesh getting past India or Sri Lanka, or Zimbabwe getting past Pakistan or WI. So if they become featured while their team is still in the tournament, it is still relevant I think. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 00:21, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I could see Bangladesh and or Kenya going to the next round...But that's something else, go ahead do what you do--Thugchildz

Peer review and templates
I've initiated a peer review on Paul Collingwood, all comments welcome. The feature article review for the Windies in England in '88 is also on-going.

On a different note, I've just started looking at Shaun Pollock and noticed what a nightmare all the different template widths are, it looks appalling. This may have been discussed before, but is there any scope for making all cricket templates, say, 90% width? I'd interested in your opinions. The Rambling Man 11:16, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Excellent idea - I think that would really improve the look of those over-templated articles. Perhaps they could also be put into a table to keep them looking extra neat? →Ollie (talk • contribs) 12:24, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

What do people think of everyones favourite template example: Ian_Botham? I can roll out 75% width across all the templates if people like. →Ollie (talk • contribs) 13:01, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Looks good, but I'd suggest more like 80% as a lot of the templates fit nicely into two lines if this is used (since most contain a squad listing, or similar). The Rambling Man 13:38, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Template Proposition
I've just created a template for the England world cup squad, like the footballing ones (See Template:England Squad 2006 World Cup) and I am wondering if we should put it on the articles of the players selected and do templates for the other nations, or leave it as it creates too much work and clutter. Just wanted a general consensus. The template is this:

Please post any thoughts. к1иg  f1$н   £я5ω1fт  10:48, 15 February 2007 (UTC)


 * My personal opinion runs against such templates, for the reasons of clutter that you mention, but since we're already using England Squad 2003 Cricket World Cup it would make logical sense. Can you make the colour of your 2007 template match the 2003 one already in existence, though? --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch \ talk 11:08, 15 February 2007 (UTC)


 * There is some discussion higher up the page - see - where the general consensus - with which I agree - is that these tempaltes add little to a category, compared to the extra clutter that such templates create in the articles. -- ALoan (Talk) 11:57, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

So, are we saying we should keep them, do them for other nations, and match the colour scheme for world cups only? oh, and on the subject of colour schemes, should they be blue/white or blue/red, which would make more sense as it is the kit of the ODI team  к1иg   f1$н   £я5ω1fт  20:00, 15 February 2007 (UTC)


 * No. I think almost everyone in the previous discussion is saying we should delete those that we already have. Stephen Turner (Talk) 20:14, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

OK then, go ahead with that. Just wondering. к1иg  f1$н   £я5ω1fт  20:44, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm rather in the "anti-clutter" camp with these things, but regardless of that the colourscheme of this one isn't great: bright red text on a bright blue background is not at all easy to read. Loganberry (Talk) 01:06, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Awful colours. Could also do with (wk) and (vc) =Nichalp   «Talk»=  07:51, 16 February 2007 (UTC)


 * If we were keeping it, we could use * and †. Is there an accepted symbol for vice-captain?  ‡?  **?  Or ⁂ perhaps? -- ALoan (Talk) 11:40, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

For an example of how these templates can look when neatened, see Anil Kumble. Now that they are neat, I actaully quite like having those templates there. I'm not opposed to having one or two world cup squad templates on an article. →Ollie (talk • contribs) 17:37, 17 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I still think they're a mess. Stephen Turner (Talk) 20:17, 17 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I can see these are now neater, but I still have a problem with the prospect of boxes for everything: fine for stats stuff (eg the infoboxes for cricketers and teams), but less fine for text lists. I'd much rather use links within the text to separate articles that list squads for particular tournaments. Johnlp 22:05, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

International cricket in 2006-07
I see there is a mix in format of results on this page. Mostly it's "IND by 5 wickets" or "RSA by 34 runs" but there are a number of results where it says "(country's flag) South Africa by 34 runs" etc. Just wondering whether there was a preference? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by HornetMike (talk • contribs) 16:30, 17 February 2007 (UTC).

I think the flag and countries full name rather than an abbreviation looks better and is more encyclopaediacally (is that a real word?) correct, so should be utilised. I would be more than happy to change some of the results, although there is every season to do and lots of names to change, so help would be more than welcome! к1иg  f1$н   £я5ω1fт  16:35, 17 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I prefer the form "South Africa by 34 runs", but without the flags. Mind you, I'd rather see the whole article without those blasted flag icons, but thats a different matter. →Ollie (talk • contribs) 16:49, 17 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree with that. (The reason why it's so jumbled up is because lots of different people update it; it used to be only me but I've lost interest a bit - I based it on a format used by jguk for the early Tests, if I were to do it again I'd probably just list the scorecard, venue and result (with full team name written out). Sam Vimes | Address me 17:26, 17 February 2007 (UTC)