Talk:Australian cricket team in the West Indies in 1998–99/GA1

GA Review

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Reviewer: No Great Shaker (talk · contribs) 14:39, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

GA Review

Hello. As I have just nominated one article, I'm happy to review two in return, and I've chosen 2008–09 Liverpool F.C. season and Australian cricket team in the West Indies in 1998–99 which are next to each other in the sports section. Hope to provide some feedback soon. No Great Shaker (talk) 14:39, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Basic GA criteria

1. Well written: the prose is clear and concise.
2. Well written: the spelling and grammar are correct.
3. Complies with the MOS guidelines for lead sections.
4. Complies with the MOS guidelines for article structure and layout.
5. Complies with the MOS guidelines for words to watch (e.g., "awesome" and "stunning").
6. Complies with the MOS guidelines for writing about fiction – not applicable.
7. Complies with the MOS guidelines for list incorporation – not applicable.
8. Complies with the MOS guidelines for use of quotations – not applicable.
9. All statements are verifiable with inline citations provided.
10. All inline citations are from reliable sources, etc.
11. Contains a list of all references in accordance with the layout style guideline.
12. No original research.
13. No copyright violations or plagiarism.
14. Broad in its coverage but within scope and in summary style.
15. Neutral.
16. Stable.
17. Illustrated, if possible.
18. Images are at least fair use and do not breach copyright.

For reviews, I use the above list of criteria as a benchmark and complete the variables as I go along. No Great Shaker (talk) 14:56, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Comments

Sorry, but in this case I must resort to WP:GAFAIL because the article is a long way from meeting one of the good article criteria: it is not well written with a poor introduction and the use of bullet points in the match summaries is not an acceptable substitute for clear and concise narrative prose. I compiled the points below as I was working through the article and I hope they provide useful guidance.

Lead

The lead does not adequately summarise the article and is really nothing more than a mention of the series results. There are other points:

• seven One Day International (plural)
• resulting in Australia retaining (awkward construction to be rewritten)
• two all (hyphen)
• the content of the last two sentences is not mentioned in the narrative so the information should be moved out of the lead and into the narrative (I would in any case ask if this information is worth including at all because it seems to be trivia)
• say something about both the team captains given that one was new to his job and the other had been involved in a controversy
• present an overview of the crowd problems that occurred during some of the matches
• some mention of the outstanding performers on each side, such as Glenn McGrath and Brian Lara whose names stand out in the test match summaries

Background

Several points arise including wording that should be revised:

• in the context of this test series, is there any significance in the abandonment of the January 1998 match? It would appear that the ground in Kingston is a regular international venue and so its use in 1999 must have been taken for granted
• single sentence paragraphs are deprecated
• this was... they were contesting... (poor construction; this was the 19th series and the 16th time that they contested the trophy)
• the second paragraph needs commas to break up some of the sentences
• since that time (since then)
• do not capitalise apartheid
• presumably Brian Lara was stripped of the captaincy, not just stripped
• avoid slang terms like skipper especially as the words captain and captaincy are used everywhere else in the section
• the board announced Lara would stay on as captain (the board announced that Lara would be retained as captain)

Summary

The standard of English in this section is not good:

• opening match of Test series (the)
• expressions like six match, one all, seven match, back and forth, etc. are hyphenated
• before 1999 Cricket World Cup (the)
• marred with (marred by)
• six year earlier (plural)
• in protest of (in protest at)
• the crowd throw bottles (tense – threw)

Some other points:

• was the lowest innings score of 51 their lowest-ever or just in this series?
• the poor crowd behaviour by the West Indian supporters needs a citation
• loss of context in the sentence about Roy Fredericks – this match or the one in 1979?
• ditto re the next sentence about play not resuming

Squads

• these lists are names only and should present some basic information about each player such as his age, skillset (batsman, fast bowler, etc.), club, number of internationals and suchlike
• why are Andy Bichel and Adam Dale included in column four and crossed out?
• due his right shoulder injury (due to)
• replaced with (replaced by)

Match summaries (three sections)

I quite like the potted match details which summarise the scorecards but they would be better if they also included the second- and sometimes third-best performer in an innings. For example, Waugh and Ponting shared a large partnership in the third test match but only Waugh's score is given. How many did Ponting score? Are there instances of two bowlers taking five wickets but only the most economical one is shown?

The big problem with the match summaries is the use of a bullet point list in lieu of a narrative. The first of the GA criteria requires that the article is well written with prose that is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience. Bullet points do not enhance understanding unless the reader already has a good knowledge of the subject.

Result

The article has failed the GA review. No Great Shaker (talk) 13:46, 1 April 2020 (UTC)