"Australia qualified for the finals after defeating Sri Lanka by 48 runs in the first semi-final, while India beat Kenya by 91 runs to meet Australia in the final." This is quite a confused sentence. You say "while", but the matches took place on different days. You use "final" one time and "finals" the other time to mean the same thing. And you don't really need to mention that Australia were in the final in the second half of the sentence once you've mentioned it in the first part.
"India lost wickets in regular intervals to end up losing all the 10 wickets at the end of 39.2 overs scoring 234 runs." Unless this is a regional variation that I'm not familiar with, a team loses wickets at intervals, not in them. I think the sentence could be reordered for clarity: "In their innings, India lost wickets at regular intervals; they were bowled out after 39.2 overs for 234 runs."
Route to the final
"Australia and India, both were in "Pool A" of the competition." This should be "Australia and India were both in "Pool A" of the competition."
"Australia won all its group matches comprehensively except for the match against England, where it had to recover from 135 for 8 to reach the target of 205 runs." Again, quite confusing. This really ought to be two sentences. Something like, "Australia won all its matches in the group stage. All the victories were comprehensive except the match against England, where the team had to recover from 135 for 8 to reach the target of 205 runs."
"Netherlands" always takes a direct article in prose: "the Netherlands".
In general, this section is written from an India-centric point of view. The match between India and Australia would seem to be an important part of the section in its own right as setting context for the final, but the article treats it as part of India's route to the final. I think this needs a little fleshing-out and separating from the India narrative. You describe every team that India played, but only three that Australia played. It would also be good to give some context in terms of performances. Who played well?
"This led to the angered fans" – you mean "This led to angered fans" because they haven't been referred to yet.
"residence" – why not "house"? It's what the source uses and it's more natural English.
The "Super Sixes" section is confusing. It would be better if you separated the two teams' matches into separate paragraphs rather than flitting between them. Also, why isn't there an article for the Super Sixes like there is for the group stage? Summary style would be very helpful here.
Split. Currently, we don't have an article on Super Sixes
Semi-finals
"Sri Lanka lost both the openers when the play was interrupted by rain." This sounds like they lost the openers at the same moment as the rain came. You mean "before" rather than "when".
"Sri Lanka in return..." You don't need "in return".
"India after winning the toss made..." This is an identical construction to the one used for the first match. Why not "India won the toss and made..."?
"Semi-final" or "semi-final"?
"Captain Ganguly" This makes him sound like a naval officer.
"Kenya in reply, managed 179 runs losing all the 10 wickets in 46.2 overs." Why not "In reply, Kenya were bowled out for 179 runs in 46.2 overs."?
"Ganguly's counterpart" I don't think you need to mention that he's the captain; if you do, just say it, rather than saying it in terms of Ganguly.
"India's Zaheer Khan returned with a bowling figures of 3 wickets for 14 runs." Where was he returning from? And it's "bowling figures" not "a bowling figures".
Build up
This is very short. Is it all that can be said? Did any players say anything before the match? What were expected to be the key battles?
"India had once won the competition," "India had won the competition once."
"Prior to the World Cup, India lost the home series against West Indies and one against New Zealand heavily." This makes little sense. Which series were at home? Was it both? They lost one series or one match to New Zealand? Was it just the New Zealand series that saw a heavy defeat or both?
Final
"India went for" – you mean "India selected". You could also clarify that Kumble is a spin bowler.
"for plenty of runs" What does this mean?
"Captain Ricky Ponting" My word there are a lot of naval officers in this cricket match!
"Martyn scored briskly at a run-a-ball rate and completing his half-century in 46 balls." First, you mean "completed" rather than "completing". Second, where does "briskly" come from? Is it OR or from a source? Third, being very pedantic, if he scored 50 runs from 46 balls that is not "a run-a-ball rate".
"Ponting after completing his half-century started..." This is that odd construction again that doesn't sound very natural. "After completing his half-century, Ponting started..." is better.
Why is "one-handed" in quotes?
Because it's not encyclopaedic
"At the end of the innings, Australia finished with 359 runs for 2 wickets;" This is tautologous: "Australia finished the innings with 359 runs for 2 wickets" is better."
Why is there a reference hanging around in the middle of a sentence?
What records did Ponting and Martyn set?
"in what happened to be his last game" – "in his last game" is sufficient.
Nobody was sure that it could be his last international outing. He was rested for the series after the WC and his retirement came as a shock only after 6-7 months.
"India came out to bat with their openers – Tendulkar and Sehwag." This is again tautology: "India's openers were Tendulkar and Sehwag."
"The pressure on Tendulkar, the tournament's top-scorer, was too high as the fans had a lot of expectations." Too high for what? The high expectations really could have gone in the Build up section.
"Tendulkar after hitting a boundary in the fourth ball of the over was dismissed in the next delivery" Again, odd phrasing. "Tendulkar hit a boundary on the fourth ball of the over but was dismissed on the next delivery"
"Kaif, the next man, left the same over" This sounds like he got bored and wandered off. "Kaif, the next man, was dismissed in the same over."
"until rain interrupted the play when the score was 107 runs for 3 wickets at the end of the seventeenth over." Odd sentence structure. "until the seventeenth over, when rain interrupted play with the score at 107 runs for 3 wickets."
"Ponting brought in their spinners – Brad Hogg and Darren Lehmann." You want a comma, not a dash: "Ponting brought on Australia's spinners, Brad Hogg and Darren Lehmann."
"Sehwag and Dravid departed in succession" What does this mean?
"Except for Yuvraj Singh who scored 24 runs, the rest of the players got out for low scores." Vague. Something like "The highest score in the rest of the innings was Yuvraj Singh's score of 24."
"India lost all the 10 wickets at 39.2 overs and managed to score 234 runs" Why "managed"? Why not "India were bowled out in 39.2 overs for 234 runs?
"Australia, winning the match by 125 runs, won their second successive World Cup trophy and third overall." Make this two sentences: "Australia won the match by 125 runs. It was their second successive World Cup trophy and their third overall."
"140 not out" Earlier on you said "140*". Be consistent.
Aftermath
"who called it a "backfire"". That's really stretching the source. The source (one single news report, not "the media and experts") says it "backfired spectacularly".
Added another source
"denouncing", "criticized", "opined". Too much elegant variation there.
I'm less sure about this, but I feel the title could be worked into the opening sentence very easily (e.g. The 2003 Cricket World Cup Final was played between Australia and India on 23 March 2003 at the Wanderers Stadium, Johannesburg, South Africa. It decided the winner of the 2003 Cricket World Cup.). This would improve the lead.
2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.
No references for "their batting received severe criticism"
You say that Rahul Dravid's "residence" was vandalised, but the source says it was his car.
You present Tendulkar's statement as asking for "calm and patience" in direct quotes as though it came directly from his statement, but the source treats it as a paraphrase. You need to remove the direct quotes or find a source for his actual words.
No reference for "India's only defeat was the nine-wicket loss against the former in the group stage"
2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).
The article addresses the group stages and super sixes without even briefly explaining how the structure of the competition worked. I think you need first to introduce the structure of the competition and then explain how the teams progressed through it.
3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).
4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.
As mentioned above, it's a little India-centric in some of the descriptions.
5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.
6.Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
You should note that the photograph of Tendulkar was not taken during the tournament. Maybe "(photographed here in 2009)" in the caption. Also, could you not provide a photograph of Ponting?
7. Overall assessment.
There's a good article in here somewhere, but you're going to need to do a decent bit of work to get it there, I fear. 7 days for now; do say if you need more time. Relentlessly (talk) 11:54, 23 April 2015 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for taking up the review. Think I've addressed most of the prose-related concerns. I do agree that the tone of the article is a little India-centric (being an Indian I literally cried after the match). I'll add some more stuff and make sure that it looks balanced. —Vensatry(ping)19:47, 23 April 2015 (UTC)Reply
OK, Vensatry, this is a big improvement. I've done a copyedit. A few remaining things:
You refer to Zaheer Khan as "Khan". Am I wrong in think that he is normally referred to as "Zaheer"?
The second sentance of "Summary" duplicates part of "build-up".
I still think "a little unususally" is borderline OR. You need a source that describes the particular decision as unusual, rather than one that describes the general principle. The one book you have in "Sources" is also a bit odd, given that it's a source for just one sentence rather than for the whole article.
"The pressure on Tendulkar, the tournament's top-scorer, was too high as the fans had a lot of expectations." This is not NPOV. To say it was high (as you do in "Build-up") is fine; to say it's "too" high is a particular POV. I think you can remove that sentence.
There is some inconsistency about "was" and "were". Early on and later on you say "Australia was" but in the middle you say "India were". You need to be consistent.
You cannot put "backfire" as a direct quotation when it isn't one. Both sources use it as a verb: you need to say something like:
Ganguly's decision to bowl first was criticized by the media; the New York Times, for instance, said it "backfired horribly".
You have not provided any citations for the circumstances surrounding the renewal of John Wright's contract. Perhaps this article? Maybe also this one?
Vensatry, this looks good. The only remaining point (a fairly trivial one) is about Zaheer's name. Cricinfo and the BBC both refer to him as Zaheer, but I don't know enough about Indian names to have the confidence to be bold and fix this myself. Do you have any thoughts? Relentlessly (talk) 18:22, 27 April 2015 (UTC)Reply
@Relentlessly: I missed this one. Per WP:LASTNAME, we are advised to use the last name after the first occurrence. The guideline, however, is missing an Indian perspective. I'm open to use Zaheer as in the case of Harbhajan and Yuvraj. —Vensatry(ping)18:37, 27 April 2015 (UTC)Reply
