Talk:1772 English cricket season/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Guettarda (talk · contribs) 16:53, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Guettarda. Thanks for starting this review. Please let me know if I can help with anything. All the best. No Great Shaker (talk) 22:27, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

It is reasonably well written.
a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
It is factually accurate and verifiable.
a (reference section): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism):
It is broad in its coverage.
a (major aspects): b (focused):
It follows the neutral point of view policy.
Fair representation without bias:
It is stable.
No edit wars, etc.:
It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.
a (images are tagged and non-free content have non-free use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
Overall:
Pass/Fail:

General notes

This is an interesting topic, and you've done nice work on it. Some things that could still use some work.

Is there a reason you use "game" instead of match?

Agree. Have switched all instances of game → match except once where it's in a direct quote.

Lead

I think the lead could do a better job of summarising the main points of the article; for example, by far the longest section of the "Inaugural first-class matches" one, but it only gets a single sentence in the lead. I also think the prose feels a bit stilted. For example: There are surviving scorecards of three first-class matches in which the Hampshire county team played against an England team Something like "Scorecards survive from three first-class matches..." or even "First class status has been awarded retrospectively to three matches between Hampshire county and England for which scorecards have survived" (although the latter would require reworking the opening sentence a bit).

Agree. I've made several changes to the lead to move things around and expand. Can I ask you to look at this again and see if you think more is needed. Thanks.

I also feel like "who won the most matches" or something of the sort could go in the lead.

Done.

Eleven-a-side matches

Is there a reason why this is the first subsection, ahead of the "Inaugural first-class matches" and "Players" section? As a reader, hitting a table this soon in an article is daunting, and might make me stop reading. Throwing some text up before the table seems to make a bit more sense, especially since the issue of first class status is sort of the big point of this article.

Agree. As I said above, I had doubts about that table myself and, in the end, I've decided to lose it. All of its content fits into narrative sections.

Nottingham forfeited the match after being dismissed for 14 - I think 14 runs is worth specifying here.

Done.

Hampshire & Sussex team - which source? Two sources are cited, but I suspect that neither is the original source you're referring to.

Done. It was ambiguous and I had to ask one of my friends to check it. It's in the 1937 edition of Buckley's researches. By the way, I've shifted all the ACS citations to a places where they confirm only the date and venue of each match, because that's all their book provides.

Recognised as the inaugural, though unofficial, first-class match - I'm a big fan of "by whom" in contexts like this. While CricInfo and Cricket Archive are mentioned in the following section as listing the match as F1, is that their decision or was this designation applied by an earlier historian? (I feel like, cricket historians being what they are, someone would have decided that long before these relatively modern sources were established.

A bit of a story behind this one. I'm told that the ACS originally set up Cricket Archive sometime in the 2000s and, around the same time, they decided to use 1772 as their start point for first-class matches. I gather they had previously used 1864 and then 1801. Cricket Archive adopted 1772 and then Cricinfo followed suit. The problem is that the ACS don't seem to have published anything we could use as a source so we are left with just the two databases. I've done some rewording around it to say that it is some sources with these two as examples.

Inaugural first-class matches

The game on 24–25 June was the first for many years to leave a scorecard. When I read this I immediately ask "since when?" Do you know when the last scorecard before 1772 is from?

Done. Last was 1769 and I understand there were only four from 1744 to 1769.

Given the front-loading that's standard in Wikipedia articles, I think it would be helpful to bring the information that's now in the third section up to the opening sentence of the section. As it currently stands, it isn't exactly clear to the reader where things are headed.

Done. Agreed.

"Given men" needs to be linked, since it's not a term the average reader would know, or explained in context.

Done. The link is to a glossary so I've added an I.e. note too.

The third paragraph feels a bit choppy, since it's short and the linkage between the two sentences isn't obvious.

I've moved this section around a lot so I might have covered this one in passing. Could you please check and let me know if it still needs anything? Thanks.

MOS:ITAL says Use <em>...</em> or {{em|...}} for emphasis rather than ''...''

Done. Haven't seen the em before. Happy to adopt it.

Is the "(aka Minchin)" from the original source?

Removed. It wasn't in that source so had been incorporated from a different source. Apparently he was sometimes called Minchin but I gather Minshull was his real name.

Single wicket

I think you should get rid of the opening Tuesday, 2 June. It doesn't fit with the way the rest of the article is written

Done. Agreed. Sorry, I should have seen that one.

Assuming that "11 & 46" means "11 runs in the first innings and 46 in the second" say so. Don't assume readers know enough about cricket to follow.

Done. Yes, good point.

The Hampshire team was - I think "consisted of" would be better than "was", which feels odd here.

Done. Changed both counties to "The x players were..."

Guettarda (talk) 23:48, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Images

I think the article would be improved by images, if for nothing else than the break up the text visually. Of course, it would be difficult to find something that's not a complete anachronism. I looked around and I did fine File:Bourne Park House and sheep fields - geograph.org.uk - 335631.jpg. The house in the background appears to be Bourne Park House, which was built in 1701, and sheep on the pitch is probably consistent with the way things were done at the time. Guettarda (talk) 23:56, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That's an excellent image because it can't have looked much different over 200 years ago. I followed the various links and found a couple more images. One may be a bit too modern with the players on the field and the other is a gravestone so I hope they're okay, but they do at least add something to the narrative.

Editor's comments

Hello, Guettarda. Hope you are well. This is an excellent review and just what I was hoping for. The article itself has something of a history, as you probably appreciate, and what we have here is a restoration from 2018 which I've amended. The content had been heavily reduced prior to the aborted merger, possibly because of doubts about the sources. My contacts in the publishing world have access to the source books and they've confirmed everything verifies. That said, I agree with you that more work is needed on the prose, lead and structure. I'll add the image you've found and see if I can find any more, though it's unlikely there'll be much out there given the date and subject.

The 2018 version originally had a hugely elaborate table which I converted into standard wikitable, although I still had doubts as to whether it was the best thing for the article. I wondered about converting it into prose. I do think you're right that it could be too much for some readers.

Please leave it with me a few days. I've been very busy of late but things have settled now and I should be able to come back soon. I'll answer all your points individually so I don't miss any.

Thanks again and all the best. No Great Shaker (talk) 12:53, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hello again, Guettarda. I've managed to make plenty of time for this and a lot of changes have been done. The table has gone and I think it's much better without it, especially with images in there. When you have time, could you please look at it again and let me have more feedback. Thanks again for your help which has been really useful. All the best. No Great Shaker (talk) 13:05, 24 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Nice work - this looks great! I'm going to pass it as soon as I do the image licence checks. Guettarda (talk) 13:49, 24 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Guettarda. An excellent and thorough review with feedback that really helped us improve the article. All the best. No Great Shaker (talk) 17:04, 24 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, No Great Shaker for this article. I really never thought much about cricket before the 19th century - I had no idea it had such a long history. So it was really cool to come across this GAN! Guettarda (talk) 19:55, 24 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I became interested myself when I saw History of cricket to 1725 in the good articles list. My first thought was that the title must be wrong! I'm first and foremost a football fan and you could barely put two sentences together if you wanted to write a history of football to 1725. I'm glad you enjoyed the article. Thanks again and all the best. No Great Shaker (talk) 20:00, 24 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]