Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cricket/Archive 7

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West Indian cricket team

Would appreciate any feedback on the way this article is progressing, particularly on its length and readability.

Is it alright to go ahead with the current format of descriptive writing ? 1970s is set to become longer than any of the previous decades, though the next three should be comparatively smaller. Tintin 07:44, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

It looks really good -- I wish we had this kind of article for every Test-playing nation. Some minor NPOV work ('Brian Lara's performance as captain was even worse') and some photos and this would be moving towards readiness for WP:FAC, I think. --Ngb 08:16, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm very impressed by this, too. I suppose the only small point I'd make, a stylistic one rather than being directly cricket-related, is that I think it looks more professional if single-digit numbers are written as words, so that we'd have "one of only two West Indian bowlers..." rather than "1 of only 2 West Indian bowlers...". (I make an exception for scores, so that "he made 26 and 2 in the match" would stay.) Other than that, and the points Ngb made above, I think it's an excellent article and I agree that not all that much work would make it into a candidate for featured status. Loganberry (Talk) 09:05, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Very good article, yes. I'm just thinking that the 1930s and 1950s sections are a bit too big compared to the rest of the text? Sam Vimes 14:45, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

The decades are through. Some sections are still quite long despite deliberate attempts to trim them down. Feel free to edit, delete or anything that you think is appropriate to make it more readable. All the stuff that was originally here is in the talk page.

So what's next here ? I can think only of a records section at the end Tintin 14:49, 20 August 2005 (UTC) (With thanks to Jguk and Sam)

Joining

Hello, the project page said I must inquire here about becoming a member. I am a South African cricket fan/player and am eager to help out if I am needed. Please let me know if I ought to join this project. Thanks. Banes 17:28, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

You'd be most welcome. South African cricket is sorely needing coverage on WP - just see List_of_South_African_Test_cricketers for all the redlinks! Ah, and just sign up - most other people do that, but thanks for the polite inquiry. Sam Vimes 17:33, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

May I echo Sam's comments -we'd more than welcome more coverage on South African cricket - just pick your favourite area and go for it. If you want to publicise some of the areas you're working on to see if others are interested in helping you, just drop a note either here or on the main WP:Cricket project page, jguk 18:16, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Thank you! I will join and see about those fiendish little red links.....Banes 10:38, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

• The first para on the project page does sort of read like you must enquire here before you can contribute. Could we soften it a bit? -- Ian ≡ talk 12:10, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Done. *loves being bold* Sam Vimes 12:19, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Cricketbio-stub created

The proposal for a {{cricketbio-stub}} category has gone its week on WP:WSS/P without objection, so I've now created it. Lots of stubs to be moved, as soon as the servers wake up again! Loganberry (Talk) 19:44, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

National cricket teams

I am currently on a project to write up the national cricket team articles a bit better. It occured to me as I was in bed last night (yes, really) that the naming of these articles is a bit stupid. For example: "Australian cricket team". This is an encyclopedia article about an Australian cricket team. As such, it could describe what we think of as "Australia", but it could also refer to the New South Wales cricket team, or even Midland-Guildford. The same convention applies to all the other national cricket team articles.

I can see two ways to resolve this horrible ambiguity:

1. Insert "national" before "cricket team". Incidentally, this would appear to be how the names were until a point last year, when they were moved for no apparent good reason.
2. Call the articles "Nation (cricket team)", so "Australia (cricket team)".

I much prefer the former, although I can see merits for the latter. What do other people prefer? Perhaps you even prefer the conciseness of the current form? [[smoddy]] 20:46, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

The first option seems to be consistent with the names of sporting teams around WP - re Norwegian national football team, England national rugby union team and Canadian national men's hockey team. I'd tend to agree with that, too Sam Vimes 20:53, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

I agree that the first option is preferable, especially as it would be consistent with other sports as Sam Vimes says. Of course, England A is a national cricket team as well, as are the women's team, the Under-19s and so on, but I can't see a way around that. Loganberry (Talk) 21:00, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

There is England national men's cricket team, if we really want to take PC-ness to the extreme ;) Sam Vimes 21:03, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Ah, but England A is still included in that. Personally I'd hold out for England national men's cricket team for Tests, ODIs and so on (you know, the one with Flintoff in) or something. =;) Loganberry (Talk) 23:03, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Template:CricketWikiProject-Member

This user is a member of WikiProject Cricket, a WikiProject which aims to develop and expand Wikipedia's coverage of the sport of cricket. Please feel free to join us.

Hi guys. Just to let you know I have made a template Template:CricketWikiProject-Member, in case any of you want to advertise the WikiProject on your userpages. --Ngb 08:01, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Good idea :) Why don't you slap a category "Members of WikiProject Cricket" onto it as well? Sam Vimes 08:27, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Fair use on Template:Cricket-stub

On 17 July Angela put a note on Template_talk:Cricket-stub that the cricket ball image was possibly unfree and should not be used on every single page. I answered her, but didn't do anything with the pics, since I'm not very good with Photoshop and things. Now there's been almost exactly a month - could someone crop a picture and replace it in the template? Sam Vimes 11:57, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

I'll handle it. =Nichalp «Talk»= 12:15, August 17, 2005 (UTC)

I tried, but I couldn't extract get a perfect circle because of the grass and shadows. If someone could source a high resolution image [>1000px] (preferably of a new cricket ball -- old ones don't look to good). I could extract it more easily. A white (or a light colour) background, is essential, and the seam should be prominent to show it is a cricket ball. =Nichalp «Talk»= 12:55, August 17, 2005 (UTC)

Just Joined

Just added my name to the list. I'll see what I can do about some of the work that's highlighted on the discussion page over the next few days/weeks.

In the meantime, I came up with a few ideas about restructuring some of the articles while I was doing a bunch of cricket edits recently. These are just my suggestions, I'd be interested to know what other people think.

Firstly, I'm wondering whether the articles on bowling are perhaps a bit more disparate than they should be. We've got seperate articles (some of them very short) on swing bowling, seam bowling, leg cutter, off cutter, indipper and many many more. Wouldn't these be better integrated in a single article about fast bowling? The various articles on the art of spin seem to be similarly divided up.

I can see the point, but at the same time, I find it useful to give a direct link to something like leg cutter when I'm writing an article - and not having to write [[Fast bowling#Leg cutter|Leg cutter]] for example. Maybe we could add short summaries on the main fast bowling page, though, I'm not quite sure how that looks at the moment. Sam Vimes 08:09, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Fair point, but it is just a few more characters to type, and I'm sure it'd make more sense to users .. after all we can then cross reference different techniques and styles of bowling to build up a more comprehensive understanding. I'm sure there would at least be some value in combining things like leg cutter/off cutter and indipper/outdipper into a single article each i.e. cutter and dipper.MattDP 13:42, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Second, is it really worthwhile having the career infoboxes on individual bio pages when they contain a link to cricinfo which would give the user the exact same data?

I hope my edits prove of use. I should warn you that I have a rather verbose writing style which sometimes isn't really up to the sort of standards that are required on wikipedia so I won't be offended if any overlong paragraphs get trimmed in the name of clarity! :)MattDP 08:40, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

On the infobox - I think it depends on the article. If the article is a sub-stub plus the infobox, I think it has very little value, but when you get articles the size of Brian Close it makes sense to include his statistics as it's quite relevant to judging his performances. A bit like we don't just link to CIA World Factbook and ask people to check that up for area and population data, for example. Sam Vimes 08:09, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Good example, sounds fair. MattDP 13:43, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Hi, I just add my name to the list and I'm kinda new to the whole WikiProject thing, but I'll help out alot with the articles pertaining to New Zealand cricket. Any suggestions, or advice? -Mysticflame

Welcome! List of New Zealand cricketers is a good place to start - or List_of_current_first-class_cricket_teams#New_Zealand. Both are littered with red links that cry out for articles :) Sam Vimes 06:18, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Disambiguation

There is currently a debate about whether cricket should be about the sport or a disambiguation page (triggered largely, it would seem, by the claim that US people would identify the word "cricket" with the insect). Please see the discussion and "poll" at Talk:cricket. -- ALoan (Talk) 18:14, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Historic Cricketer Template

What's happened to it? It doesn't seem to be working on any page that I've looked at. Is this a bug, or has there been a change or decision that I don't know about? Raven4x4x 10:09, August 20, 2005 (UTC)

I have no idea! Only thing I can think of is that template redirects seem not to work any more - so people who have written Infobox Historic Cricketer don't get redirected to Infobox Historic cricketer. Weird. Hopefully it's a bug that gets fixed soon... Sam Vimes 10:15, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Can you give an example of a page where this is a problem? I haven't seen it myself, jguk 15:09, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

It was a problem earlier, and resulted in the Main Page getting broken. It's fixed now. [[smoddy]] 15:13, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

I still have problems with it. The infobox isn't working on the Denis Compton and Bill Ponsford pages, but it is working on others such as Don Bradman and Jack Hobbs. Very strange.

Oops, cancel that. All the pages I said didn't work now do work. Obviously it was a bug. I stil don't see how those two pages didn't work before, but start working the very second that I post a comment about it. Oh well... Raven4x4x 05:40, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

Date formats?

What format is best to use for referring to non-English seasons? I've been using (eg) 1971/72 in the articles I've written, since that's the format that Wisden and Cricinfo use (okay, actually it's 1971-72), but jguk has written (eg) Category:1971/2 South African cricket season. So, 1971/72 or 1971/2 - or either, or neither? Guidance please! Loganberry (Talk) 22:58, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Only 1971-72 is actually correct. 1971/72 is acceptable. 1971/2 is generally not considered acceptable. [[smoddy]] 23:01, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Says who? Always repeat the minimum number of digits:) Eg 1971/2, 1979/80 and 1999/2000. (I'm happy to go with the majority view anyway, by the way). It will all soon be moot as we replace [[1971]]/[[1972|2]] with [[1971/2 South African cricket season|1971/2]], or whatever anyway:) jguk 23:06, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Heck, I know I have seen rules on this before. Maybe it was Fowler, but I can't currently find it. [[smoddy]] 23:11, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Although I've been using 1971/72 for the most part, it occurs to me that maybe 1971-72 would be better, since it would avoid the problem of Wikipedia encountering the slash and treating "1971/72" as a subpage of "1971". Admittedly that doesn't seem to cause problems in practice. The hyphenated style is also what Wisden uses, which might have some bearing. Like jguk, though, I'm happy to go along with any consensus. Loganberry (Talk) 22:52, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

It does cause a small problem at talk. See Talk:1971/2_South_African_cricket_season_(chronological_match_reports) Sam Vimes 23:02, 21 August 2005 (UTC) PS: Also, The Times say "When citing periods of years, say 1992-93 (not 1992-3)" [1] Sam Vimes 23:03, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm. I don't always agree with The Times ("Day 1"?), but maybe they have a point on this occasion. It might also be worth noting that our counterparts working on football-related articles use the hyphenated style, as in FA Premier League 1998-99. (They also have FA Premier League 1999-00, though, rather than ...1999-2000.) Given that, and the (albeit relatively minor) Talk-related problem you mention, I'm coming around to the idea that perhaps 1971-72 (etc) is the way to go. Loganberry (Talk) 01:08, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

I suppose the obvious solution is simply to set up redirects, so that 1892-93 South African cricket season and 1892/93 South African cricket season would send people to 1892/3 South African cricket season. I think all three forms are quite likely to be looked for by users, and it would solve the most important problem - that of not being able to find where a particular season was. Loganberry (Talk) 20:45, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Help with Calcutta Cricket and Football Club

Hi. I'm a traveller from the Wikipedia:WikiProject Football and started an article on the Calcutta Cricket and Football Club (of Kolkata, India). One of the external pages I found, in the Telegraph here, claims that 1780 rather 1792 would be the actual date for the founding of the club. This would apparently be a major claim to make, esp. in a cricketing context. I was wondering if anyone here had more insight into this? With Thanks - Master Of Ninja 20:36, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

According to the book I'm currently reading, A Corner of a Foreign Field, The Indian History of a British Sport by Ramachandra Guha, the first cricket club founded outside Britain was the Calcutta Cricket Club in 1792 - 1792 certainly seems to be the received wisdom, jguk 21:02, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

1780 seems to be a relativley new discovery. I saw the same in Boria Majumdar's 'Indian Cricket through the ages' [2]. He has quoted a long paragraph from the Bengal Gazette issue mentioned in the Telegraph. I don't have the book myself. There seems to be some merit in this and IMHO, it is worth atleast a footnote. Tintin 01:12, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

I've read the newspaper article, but it doesn't seem to provide much evidence. There was a "Calcutta Club" in 1780 that seems to have been all-European. But then nothing more is heard about it. Even assuming it was a Calcutta Cricket Club, it may well have folded quickly (as is common for new clubs, and even more so in the early days). There doesn't appear to be evidence of the Calcutta Cricket Club being in continuous existence since 1780, jguk 06:12, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Cricket Australia Cup

Hi, I'm working on the Canberra article and the only cricket team we have is the ACT Coments who play in the Cricket Australia Cup. I was wondering if this project was planning on writng an article on this junior repsesentative competition- or is it not really notable enough for an encyclopedia article?--nixie 03:20, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

The Cricket Australia Cup is plenty notable and article-worthy. here's a link. -- Ian ≡ talk 04:10, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Stubs

Something has gone wrong with cricket-bio stubs. Some silly stuff about NZ cricket appears everywhere. I don't know where to fix it. Tintin 09:11, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Fixed it. Tintin 09:13, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

I saw that on some articles and I think it might be vandalism. DaGizza 09:16, 24 Aug 2005

Category:Test cricketers

All of the sub-categories of Category:Test cricketers have lowercase "test", reflecting the categories used on the underlying articles. However, the Wikipedia standard usage (as discussed here previously) is for uppercase. Do we need some sort of bot to change all of the underlying articles? -- ALoan (Talk) 11:33, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Probably, jguk 11:51, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Please. It's very annoying -- Ian ≡ talk 12:39, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Well, that would required someone who runs a bot... ISTR that there is a page to place bot requests somwhere... -- ALoan (Talk) 14:03, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Bot requests. --Ngb 14:26, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. Should I make a request, then? -- ALoan (Talk) 15:21, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Yeah please do. =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:48, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

metal object that umpires have

What is that metal ringed object that umpires have which are used to find out if the ball is in shape? =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:53, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

• Calipers? A ring? A ball gauge (probably that, since it is a redlink)? -- ALoan (Talk) 19:01, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Its actually two rings, like a pair of handcuffs. One measures the minimum diameter allowed, and the other the maximim. =Nichalp «Talk»= 05:57, August 25, 2005 (UTC)
    • Some Google hits suggest ball gauge [3] [4] (also wicket gauge and/or stump gauge). -- ALoan (Talk) 09:51, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
      • Created a page for ball gauge. =Nichalp «Talk»= 14:51, August 26, 2005 (UTC)