Talk:English cricket matches to 1725

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Useful points made at FL review

Thanks to @PresN: for the following:

• The lead is anemic. An FL lead is supposed to generally summarize what the list is going to be about in enough detail that the reader, who is generally familiar with the idea of cricket being a sport with matches, can follow along. This does not. Ah, no, it actually does not. Will write a full summary.

• Lists are not meta additions to articles; they are stand-alone things. "This is a list" and "complements History of cricket to 1725" are not appropriate, nor is the later discussion of how the format differs from other articles/lists that are not this one. Good point.

• You don't need a standard wikitable if you don't care for sorting. That said, that table format is really offputting: I don't know what a standard sports template is, but something that looks more like e.g. List of Mystery Dungeon video games would be much better. I'll look into this but I think the format works well for presenting information of this kind. As you say, this is not a table to be sorted so no point in going down the "standard" route.

• This list is short enough that I'm not sure why you're restricting it to "significant" matches instead of all matches, especially without an explicit criteria for what "significant" means. Better wording is needed in the lead. It is a list of ALL KNOWN matches to 1725, significant or otherwise. My apologies for misleading you.

• The "First Mentions" section has no references; even if the sources are used elsewhere in the list, they need to be explicitly cited here. Fair enough. Can deal with that.

• Okay, so there's only a couple dozen matches that we know about (or were "significant") prior to 1726, but we know there were also several dozen standing teams at some point in the 100+ years? But not the points they existed at, even vaguely, for most of them. This section is missing a ton of details the reader would expect, and doesn't attempt to explain why they're not there either. Ditto.

Will take these on board and see if I can improve the article. Thanks again. Jack | ^{talk page} 07:29, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

Have decided the article should not be a WP:LIST and will treat as a normal season review article, so it has been moved and renamed. Jack | ^{talk page} 13:31, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

A good summary

This is a good summary but as you may be aware, the term first class cricket cannot apply. It did not apply then. In History we should apply the terms in use. If we refer to later classifications, they must be 'first class' rather than first class. As you know I believe IMPORTANT to be the only valid term and can call on Keith Warsop for support. First class is an obsession of Bailey and Griffiths. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.169.0.85 (talk) 11:27, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Hello, Mark. Yes, I agree with you that the matches are not first-class as we understand and use the term today. This is why I have stressed here and elsewhere that important matches played before 1895 are "unofficially first-class", but I admit I'm not comfortable with such an expression. Thinking about it, I believe the ACS got it right in 1981 when they published A Guide to Important Cricket Matches Played in the British Isles 1709–1863. Okay, I'm going to use "important" in future as it is apt, capturing the essential status of the matches and, as an adjective, is more meaningful than "significant" (a village game can be significant) or "great" (which was used in many contemporary accounts, but inconsistently) or (whisper it in case CA are listening) "first-class". Whatever CA might try to insist, first-class cricket began in 1895 and, as you say, comparable matches before then need a different terminology. I disagree with many of CA's classifications, some of which are illogical and their "coverage" of early cricket is dire.

So, yes, I'll go with "important". Thank you very much for the feedback and the recommendation. All the best to Keith and yourself. Jack | ^{talk page} 15:53, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

All, please note change from list-class to article-class because this is essentially a season review, though somewhat long-term because less than thirty matches are known. Still rated B-class as above. Thanks. Jack | ^{talk page} 09:21, 5 November 2016 (UTC)