Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Cricket/archive1

I nominate this thorough and comprehensive guide to a subject foreign to most of us Yanks. PedanticallySpeaking 20:02, Aug 26, 2004 (UTC)

Support
  • Support. Having now met most of Emsworth criticism. Objecting on the grounds that cms should be cm seems over critical. GWO 12:01, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Support. An inexplicable subject clearly explained Giano 13:20, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Strongly support. [[User:Nichalp|¶ nichalp | Talk]] 20:46, Aug 27, 2004 (UTC)
  • Support enthusiastically -- I've been attempting to understand the game for years, and now I finally feel as though I do. Jwrosenzweig 21:59, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Support. Ambi 07:09, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Support. By way of full disclosure, this was completely rewritten recently by nichalp with substantial comments from me, dmmaus and Lord Emsworth amongst others. -- ALoan (Talk) 14:18, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

*Object: too many half-true or ambiguous statements. Some examples) ***'Players on the fielding team take turns to be the bowler and to bowl six consecutive balls (an over) at the batting player.' Really? All the players? One over each at a time? Or just the specialist bowlers and allrounders bowling spells of overs?) ***'When both teams have completed their innings, the team with the most runs wins, although games can also be drawn or tied.' But what if it is a three or five day game and each team has 2 innings? And one does not complete their second innings before the end of the last day? ) ***'The more wickets the bowlers manage to take, the fewer runs the opposition will score.' Really? So a bowler with figures of 35:2:126:5 has done more to limit the score than one with figures of 35:16:40:1? 145.36.24.29 14:39, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

    • Removing resolved objections. Now support. 145.36.24.29 09:26, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)
      • Thanks. The brief intro (where two of your examples come from) was meant to quite general - it is not the place to explain bowling spells, how the bowling is rotated, etc; and both teams have completed their innings when the second innings is over in a two innnings match. A team may not complete its second innings for many reasons: time may be up (so a draw) or they may win, but again this is not the place to explain. I hope I have dealt with your third point by changing it to read "Generally, the quicker the bowlers manage to take wickets, ..." Does that satisfy you? -- ALoan (Talk) 15:56, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Object

Objections. 1. One of the images uses "cms," but just "cm" should be used. Perhaps the creator of the images could be contacted; I believe that they were drawn using MS Word, and can therefore be easily changed.

Modified the image, although the thumbnail used still appears to be the older version. Cached somewhere?? GWO 12:12, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

2. The article does not mention why the Lord Protector banned cricket in England.

Fixed GWO 12:01, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

3. I suggest a different structure, because some sections have just a single subsection, which makes the ToC look awkward. Furthermore, this would help reduce the length of the ToC:

  1. Origin of name
  2. History of cricket
  3. Objective
  4. Players (Note: incorporate "10 Other roles" into this section)
  5. Officials (Note: separate from "4 Players and officials")
  6. The playing field
    1. The pitch (Note: incorporate "5.2 The Wicket" and "5.3 Creases" into this subsection, as those two are only single paragraphs and properly appertain to the pitch itself)
    2. Parts of the field (Note: presently called "Field divisions")
    3. Field placements
  7. Match structure
  8. Play of the game
    1. The toss
    2. Batting
    3. Bowling (Note: incorporate "8 Dismissal of a batsman" into this section)
    4. Fielding
    5. Wicket-keeping
  9. International structure of cricket
  10. Forms of cricket (Note: incorporate "13 Variances in international cricket" into this section)

Same for the rest.

I've restructured the article substantially, using some of your suggestions and some of my own. GWO 12:01, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I'll see what other suggestions I can make later on. -- Emsworth 20:18, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Object - No ==References== section. See Wikipedia:Cite your sources. The TOC is also overwhelming. I suggest converting many of the subheads to ; like so
Subhead
--mav 03:26, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Would it suffice if some of the external links were renamed as References? I know the TOC is large, but the page is also quite large and I'm not sure which headings you think should be removed. -- ALoan (Talk) 13:45, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Not unless there were really used as references. --mav
  • Object. As someone wholly unfamiliar with cricket, I find the order of presentation somewhat confusing. Some fine details are presented before the big picture is complete. The reader gets a long way down in the article before it becomes apparent that one guy is hurling a ball at another, and that the latter should try to hit it with a bat. The reader gets even further down before it becomes apparent that the batsmem run back and forth between the wickets. --Doradus 20:29, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • Also object. I would certainly have to agree with the above. I am in a similar position, and while I am not expecting perfect understanding after reading the article and never having seen the game, the article does cry out for a general introduction to the gameplay. Without it the more detailed description is incomprehensible. - Taxman 22:45, Aug 31, 2004 (UTC)
      • Thanks - I think this comment was made in Peer review but wasn't dealt with before the article was proposed here. I've added a brief introductory paragraph in the header. Does this deal with your objections? -- ALoan (Talk) 13:45, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)
        • Yes, that's a great start. That's just what I'm looking for. I think you could trim even more details from that, and briefly mention what "out" is, and what "runs" are. However, I'm still going to object, as described below... --Doradus 14:01, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)
        • Perhaps I can clarify my objection with a thought experiment: Suppose I know nothing of Cricket and want to get the jist of how a game is played. So I start to read the article, and find that it's launching into the history of the game, and I don't really care about that. No problem: I take a look at the table of contents for the article, and where do I click? Well, in the current structure, I might click on Play of the Game, but being section 10, it requires a lot of the previous ones in order to be intelligle. For instance, one of the first sentences I encounter is "If the bowling is slow, and the opposing wicket keeper is standing close to the stumps, the batsman will usually have their back foot behind the crease in order to prevent being out stumped." Huh?? At this point, I probably give up.
The sections themselves look like they have been through a blender. Why do we have Players in section 3, separate from Player roles in section 9? Why is Objective in section 2, separate from the Play of the Game way down in section 10? I think we're trying to give the jist early, before the details, but (a) it's not working, and (b) we should say so explicitly, with sections roughly like these (but with better names):
  1. Introduction and History
  2. Gameplay Overview (eg. bowler throws ball at batsman; batsman runs between wickets; etc.)
  3. Gameplay Details (eg. field dimensions, 8 ways to retire a batsman, where the batsman typically stands, etc.)
  4. Variations
  5. Organizations
  6. Related articles and references
Sorry to be the only objection in a sea of support. --Doradus 14:01, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Again, thanks for that: no need to apologise! The article was written by people who know the subject well, and it can be difficult to put oneself in the position of starting from scratch: your objections are precisely the sort of thing we need to know. The subject is laden with terminology, so it is a bit of a chicken and egg situation. Given that the article as it stands is pretty much an agreed position, I'll leave it alone for a bit and see if a consensus emerges. -- ALoan (Talk) 14:28, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Further objections: The article fails to cover a few points: forfieture of innings, alternating innings/ follow-on, lost ball, colour of the ball, Test v. ODI strategy (pace of scoring, etc.). -- Emsworth 14:59, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)
    • Do you consider these items sufficiently egregious to prevent this from becomming a Featured Article? --Doradus 15:29, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)
    • I've added a brief note on forfeiture, declaration and following on to the captain section. Colour of the ball should be apparent from cricket ball, which is referred to. I believe the Test cricket and ODI articles refer to strategy, as does batting (cricket). Someone may need to add lost ball somewhere. -- ALoan (Talk) 15:56, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)
    • A lot of those things are quite complex in their own right (particularly strategy!!) and I think are better addressed as linked-to secondary articles, which already exist. The page is already a long one. --dmmaus 09:54, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I have made some structural changes, pertaining to the objections made above. All changes are mentioned in the Talk:Cricket page. [[User:Nichalp|¶ ɳȉčḩåḽṗ | ]] 19:53, Sep 2, 2004 (UTC)