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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/George Hirst/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Karanacs 22:23, 27 September 2011 [1].

George Hirst

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George Hirst (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Sarastro1 (talk) 23:34, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

George Hirst was a Yorkshire cricketer who played before the First World War, setting some pretty unrepeatable records and impressing everyone with what a nice chap he was. He was a very good all-rounder who was one of the first cricketers to deliberately make a cricket ball swing when it was bowled; this is currently the number one weapon in top-level cricket. He later became a very respected coach who worked successfully with both Eton schoolboys and very rough-and-ready Yorkshire cricketers. This article is currently a GA and has received a Peer Review. Any comments welcome. Sarastro1 (talk) 23:34, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:06, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Be consistent in how you punctuate shortened citations
  • Be consistent in whether you include locations for the almanacks
  • Be consistent in whether or not you include locations for book sources
  • FN 40: ISBN?
  • Be consistent in how you notate editions
  • Subscription/registration sources should consistently be notated as such
  • Where is Twickenham? Nikkimaria (talk) 00:06, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
All done I think. --Sarastro1 (talk) 00:47, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Sources comments

SupportLeaning to support: I peer reviewed this article, and during the course of thsi FAC I have done some further copyediting. There are a few outstanding issues related to the prose:-

Lead
  • I suggest you delete the phrase "with occasional success", which gives a somewhat misleading impression of general failure and anyway is not necessary in view of the next sentence.
Leading all-rounder
  • "...he took 104 wickets, at the increased average of 21.61..." You need to clarify for non-cricketers that in this context, "increased average" means a poorer performance. Possibly "at the more expensive average..."?
  • What are we to make of Wisden concerning the first Test of 1899, in which it says of Hirst's selection "It cannot be said that the experiment was in any way a success", and then says: "while he failed as a batsman and bowler, his fielding alone was almost good enough to justify his selection". This seems somewhat contradictory.
Discovery of "swerve"
  • The following sentence reads oddly: "He had always possessed the ability to make the ball swing through the air after release, but he now developed a method of deliberately achieving "swerve". Since you have earlier equated swing with swerve, if he had always possessed the ability to swing (or swerve) the ball, what does it mean when you say "he now developed a method of deliberately achieving "swerve"? Also, "deliberately" is rather undermined by his "sometimes it works..." comment. There is further information in the Style and technique section which indicates that Hirst's ability to swerve the ball was dependent on conditions.
Style and technique
  • "Known affectionately as "George Herbert", he was admired and affectionately regarded by his contemporaries and by spectators". Unnecessary repetition.

All in all this is a commendable and very detailed biography of a historically important cricketer. Brianboulton (talk) 18:52, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • All done, I think. The reason for the Wisden discrepancy is that one comment came in the match report and the other was in his Cricketer of the Year profile from a couple of years after. I took out the comment about fielding as it was a later one and is a bit too hagiographical and his fielding is mentioned later. I've had a go at re-wording the discovery of swing and I think I've managed to clear it up; as you know, it is a tricky subject to explain as no one still really knows what causes it! If you could have a look at the swing sentence and make any further suggestions to the phrasing, I would appreciate it. Thanks for the review and all your help. --Sarastro1 (talk) 20:17, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments – Just a couple quick ones from the lead. I read most of the article, but didn't find anything else worth commenting on.

  • "One of the Wisden Cricketer of the Year for 1901". "Cricketer" should be plural since there were more than one.
  • "Hirst scored 36,356 runs and took 2,742 wickets in all his first-class career." The word "all" strikes me as unneeded and is interfering with the flow of the sentence when I read it. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 15:35, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the tweaks and the support. --Sarastro1 (talk) 18:31, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Physically brave - weird expression. I sort of know what you're getting at but it is an odd way to describe a mental attribute. Maybe "fearless/unafraid/? of injury" but that is not an improvement flow wise and not quite accurate. Not a deal-breaker this one as nothing jumps to mind as an improvement.
I think the "physically" is needed, as it may refer to being brave "mentally" (i.e. immune to pressure, cool-headed, etc). And it was not really about not being afraid of injury. Physically fearless may be the right expression, but as you say it is not really an improvement. I will leave it for now, but try to think of a better way to phrase it. --Sarastro1 (talk) 21:49, 21 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
many opponents were reduced to helplessness, even the best batsmen. - cumbersome. Can be trimmed to "even the best batsmen could be outplayed (or something)/have no answer/something similar.
I've tidied this up a bit. Thanks for the review and comments. --Sarastro1 (talk) 21:49, 21 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Image review: All images are verifiably in the public domain and stored on the appropriate servers. No issues here. Jappalang (talk) 01:51, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much. --Sarastro1 (talk) 18:20, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support. This is from a formerly enthusiastic but feckless baseball player with minimal knowledge of cricket. Here is a short list of queries and quibbles, none of which alters my support for a fine article.

:Early life

  • "After leaving school at ten years of age... " - 10 for numbers bigger than nine, usually?
First season for Yorkshire
  • "Not considered a good batsman at this stage, he batted at number eleven in the first innings" - Pipe eleven to 11?
  • "Hirst's batting remained undeveloped in 1893; he batted at number ten and did not pass fifty in any one innings, though he managed some useful scores." - 10 and 50?
  • "Although this was his only score over fifty" - 50?
  • "with three fifties" - 50s?
  • "hitting an unbeaten 115 out of a partnership of 176 for the ninth wicket" - What does "ninth wicket" refer to? "Wicket" seems to have different meanings in different contexts. I assume here it means something like "batting order". Could you add a brief parenthetical translation for us baseball fans who only sort of understand cricket?
  • "a feat appreciated by Yorkshire supporters as the fixture was always highly competitive" - Maybe add (scheduled match) after "fixture" for readers unfamiliar with this use of the word.
Leading all-rounder
  • "Hirst hit a century against Leicestershire and nine other scores over fifty... " - 50?
  • "His only score over fifty was an innings of 130 against Surrey" - 50?
Success against Australia
  • "Around the time of the first Test, the tourists endured a dispiriting spell of poor form and illness." - Is "tourists" commonly used in this context? Baseball uses "visiting team" or "visitors", so "tourists" may be just fine. Don't know.
  • "Fred Tate was one of the twelve and the selectors probably included him as they believed MacLaren could not possibly choose him in the final eleven over another player." - 12 and 11?
  • "In completing the first of ten consecutive doubles" - 10?
Record-breaking season
  • "He became only the second man after Bernard Bosanquet to score two centuries and take ten wickets in the same first-class match" - 10?
Final Tests
  • "his final Test record in 24 matches was 790 runs, with three scores over fifty," - 50?
  • "Hirst completed the fourteenth and final double of his career" - 14th?
Style and technique
  • "He usually bowled over the wicket, meaning he bowled from the right hand side of the wickets and so angled the ball across the pitch." - Delete "so?
Bibliography
I have made changes to fix all the above points with just a few exceptions. Where "fifty" is used in preference to "50", it is because a fifty in cricket (sometimes called a half-century) is a score between 50 and 99; using 50 suggests that he scored exactly that number but using "fifty" suggests the score 50-99. Also, "eleven" or "twelve" as the number in a team (i.e. one of the twelve and final eleven) is more like a synonym for "team" and is usually given as a word. It is sometimes used over here as XI or XII to distinguish it from a quantity, but I think the word is better. However, on this point if anyone has any strong objections I will change it to 11 (or XI if that would be better). "Tourists" is quite common here to refer to a touring sports team. For "and so angled the ball", it is clumsy writing on my part; I intended to show that because he bowled from that side, the ball slanted across, but "so" is too vague. I changed it to "therefore". Everything else done, and thanks for the missing OCLC; for some reason I couldn't find it when I looked. Thanks for the comments and support. --Sarastro1 (talk) 18:20, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
All of the changes look fine. Finetooth (talk) 19:03, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comments from The Rambling Man (talk · contribs) - forgive me, haven't done a FAC in a while, saw this was up while talk page stalking, so some comments...
  • Shouldn't " right handed batsman" be hyphenated, i.e. right-handed?
Done. --Sarastro1 (talk) 20:26, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Don't see why Wisden should be part of the link, i.e. Wisden Cricketers of the Year, or else link Wisden on its own so non-cricket experts get the significance.
Not quite sure I follow; Wisden is not part of the pipe, it is unlinked outside: Wisden Cricketers of the Year. If anything, it maybe should be inside but I think following the CoY link shows that it belonged to Wisden. --Sarastro1 (talk) 20:26, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think what I'm trying to say is that to non-experts, there's no clear indication as to what makes Wisden anything significant. So either link Wisden, or don't pipelink the award. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:05, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In that case, I've made Wisden part of the pipe; I really don't want two separate links next to each other (i.e. [[Wisden Cricketers' Almanack}Wisden]] Cricketer of the Year) as no one will realise it is too links: also, I think the CoY article makes it clear what this award is and what Wisden is. --Sarastro1 (talk) 21:20, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • " His Test figures were 790 runs and 59 wickets." perhaps, for a lead, it's best to be a little more verbose (especially in the world of technical cricket terminology), so why not "In Test cricket, he scored 790 runs and took 59 wickets."?
Simply because the previous sentence ends "in first-class cricket", and beginning the next sentence like this, or including the phrase in the sentence would lead to some repetition. --Sarastro1 (talk) 20:26, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "took far more wickets than he had managed earlier in his career" reads odd because before 1900 he only played for 9 years and subsequently played a further 22 or so seasons, so that's not unusual. I think you need to refine this.
Done: I wanted to change that whole thing about swing bowling anyway as it did not really tell the tale well enough. --Sarastro1 (talk) 20:26, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • " From 1903 he achieved 11 consecutive doubles. He set records in 1905, when he scored 341, still the highest total for Yorkshire as of 2011, and in 1906, when he completed an unprecedented and unrepeated double of 2,000 runs and 200 wickets." -> " From 1903 he achieved 11 consecutive doubles and set records in 1905, when he scored 341, still the highest total for Yorkshire as of 2011. In 1906, he completed an unprecedented and unrepeated double of 2,000 runs and 200 wickets." (just opinion, but flows a little better for me?)
Personally, I prefer it as it is because he set records in 'both 1905 and 1906. The alternative suggests the only record came in 1905. --Sarastro1 (talk) 20:26, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No, the alternative makes it clear that in 1906 he did something unprecedented and unrepeated. That's, surely, record speak? Perhaps "and scored a record 341 in 1905, still the ..." as well... The Rambling Man (talk) 16:05, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not quite what I meant. I think the reason you think an alternative is needed is because of the short sentence, but I think that is better than changing the sentence around for reasons of flow. At the moment, the second sentence begins with "he set some records" and then gives the two records he set in 1905 and 1906. The alternative now says "he completed 11 doubles and set some records [plural], here is the record [singular] he set in 1905. In 1906 he did the double double." The answer here is to take out the mention of "he set some records", but this would be what is left: "From 1903 he achieved 11 consecutive doubles and in 1905 scored 341, still the highest total for Yorkshire as of 2011. In 1906, he completed an unprecedented and unrepeated double of 2,000 runs and 200 wickets." For me, there is no flow between the two parts of the first sentence and we have a short, choppy second sentence. As such, I prefer it as it is right now. If it is a huge problem, I will try to recast that part completely, but I would prefer to leave it. --Sarastro1 (talk) 21:20, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I see it. You're right, my objection was the short sentence structure, but I appear to be alone and my alternative also seems weak. So I suggest you follow your own advice and leave it! The Rambling Man (talk) 21:28, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "after making occasional appearances in 1920 and 1921, he retired as a player" -> first para says he played in 1929 for YCCC.
Changed to "retired from regular first-class cricket", as I don't want to repeat the single appearance in the lead. --Sarastro1 (talk) 20:26, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "acting as a coach to young players" why not just "coaching young players"?
Done. --Sarastro1 (talk) 20:26, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "A popular player, coach and personality with cricketers and spectators, Hirst died in 1954, aged 82." reads a little bit too much like an obituary to me.
If it's a huge problem, I'll change it but I think this flows quite well as it is. The alternative is ponderous and leads more "he"s and I think the lead already strains under them: "He was a popular player, coach and personality with cricketers and spectators [or something similar]. He died in 1954, aged 82." It sounds tacked on to me and I prefer the current version. But feel free to argue! --Sarastro1 (talk) 20:26, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "professional for Elland Cricket Club for 1890 " -> "professional for Elland Cricket Club for the 1890 season"? Otherwise the for... for reads a little odd.
Done. --Sarastro1 (talk) 20:26, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "placing him third in the Yorkshire averages" context, that season? ever?
Done, although I think it was already implied it was for the season. --Sarastro1 (talk) 20:26, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "out of a partnership" odd, but I always say "in a partnership"... personal choice perhaps?
I always use "out of" when comparing the proportion of runs scored which was the intention here. I'll change it if it is a problem. --Sarastro1 (talk) 20:26, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "highest total of wickets" perhaps just "most wickets".
I think "total" is needed here to make it clear that it is something precise, not just "most wickets" in terms of "he took lots of wickets" or "lots of five-fors". --Sarastro1 (talk) 20:26, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "From left to right: Schofield Haigh, Hirst and Wilfred Rhodes. The Yorkshire team-mates at Marsden, 1905" - why not a comma and just "the" instead of ". The" without a full stop?
Re-worded. --Sarastro1 (talk) 20:26, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "he was often unlucky" - you should qualify this I think.
Not sure I can be; the source is a little vague and I genuinely don't know if Warner meant unlucky with conditions, the pitches, he beat the edge lots, or Bosanquet took all the wickets! --Sarastro1 (talk) 20:26, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Is there a link you can use for the South Africa team of the day?
Done. --Sarastro1 (talk) 20:26, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • 1,000 run-100 wicket -> en-dash needed I think.
Missed that. I hate dashes. Done. --Sarastro1 (talk) 20:26, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The English opening batsman scored the 105 runs required for victory without being separated" batsmen?
Done. --Sarastro1 (talk) 20:26, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "a minor counties match " I thought we capitalised minor counties to Minor Counties (like the ECB?
Done. --Sarastro1 (talk) 20:26, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • " his coaching connection with Yorkshire until " why not replace this Yorkshire with "the county" to make the reading more elegant.
Done. --Sarastro1 (talk) 20:26, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Link Headingley.
Done. --Sarastro1 (talk) 20:26, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wisden mention him as the father of seam bowling, but I don't see much mention of that here, just the swing aspects of his bowling game.
To be honest, I think that is a mistake on Wisden's part; I always thought Maurice Tate developed seam bowling. Unless they meant in the sense of "medium paced bowlers bag of tricks"? But there is nothing to say on seam. --Sarastro1 (talk) 20:26, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Shouldn't "plain speaking" be hyphenated?
Done. --Sarastro1 (talk) 20:26, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The Rambling Man (talk) 19:45, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your support and comments. --Sarastro1 (talk) 17:08, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Spotcheck: Has a spotcheck of the sources been done here? Ucucha (talk) 14:44, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Done, no problems here. Brianboulton (talk) 16:54, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. Ucucha (talk) 18:50, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support – I was happy with the article when I reviewed it for Good article: reading through both the article and this review, there is little more I can add. There may be a few quibbles over minor points of language, but to be honest there is nothing I am bothered enough about that I think my suggestion will be any better: it'd just be different. Nice work once again. Harrias talk 21:13, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, much appreciated. --Sarastro1 (talk) 21:36, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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