Wikipedia:Peer review/Worcestershire v Somerset, 1979/archive1

Worcestershire v Somerset, 1979

I plan to move this article towards Featured status, but I'm concerned about how it reads to a layperson, so I'm particularly looking for reviews from non-cricket fans (though I have no objection to expert reviews too!) Harrias ^talk 09:29, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Comments from Tim riley

To check how comprehensible the article would be to an absolute layman (or laywoman), I ran it past a friend who wouldn't know a leg-break from a sprained ankle, and he understood it well enough. I remember this cause célèbre very clearly, and I think the article encapsulates it admirably.

A few drafting points:

• "although the paper was on strike at the time" – the paper was not on strike: its printers were. I don't think it necessary to mention the fact at all here but if you feel you must, it would be more accurate to say something like "although publication of the paper was temporarily halted by a printers' strike".
• we could do with a citation for Arlott's quote in the second para of Reaction and aftermath.
• "Wisden Cricketers' Almanack were" – strange use of plural verb. The almanack was, surely?
• "due to" – there are rather a lot of "due to"s in this article – six of them, in fact, clustered together in groups of three. We could have a debate about whether "due to" is now accepted as a compound preposition in BrE, but even if you think it is (I don't) a bit of variety would be welcome. "Because of" is a perfectly good phrase, as is "owing to".
• "while Rose considered similar" – this reads oddly. I think the adjective needs to be an adverb. Perhaps "likewise" for "similar"?
• "who felt like they were being" – rather colloquial phrasing: perhaps "felt that" or "felt as though"? And we need a citation for this statement.
• "They need not have worried" – WP:EDITORIAL.
• "...also their league title, however a league…" needs a stronger stop than a comma: either a full stop or a semicolon.

That's all from me. I don't see why this article shouldn't prosper at FAC, and I trust you will ping me when it gets there. – Tim riley talk 19:01, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Comments from Giants2008

The article appears solid for the most part. The match summary is much shorter than the ones in most sports event FAs, but that's unavoidable given the nature of what happened and I wouldn't hold it against the article. Only a handful or so of points from me:

• Background: "with 6,500 of that being awarded to the winning team." This is one of those "noun plus -ing" sentence structures that FAC prose reviewers sometimes complain about. You could try just removing "being" and seeing if what remains works, or give it a slight rewrite to fix the issue.
• The en dash after "and there was no significant opposition" should be spaced per the Manual of Style, or converted into the larger em dash.
• Reaction and aftermatch: The period after "It's Brian Rose I do declare!" isn't needed as the exclamation serves as end-of-sentence punctuation here.
• Because the use of the Daily Main was strongly discouraged in an RFC last year, you'll want to have a good argument ready as to why reference 21 is a high-quality reliable source. Giants2008 (Talk) 00:27, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Comments from Sarastro

Just noting that I haven't forgotten this! I wonder if we are a little light on sourcing? This must have made a few biographies/autobiographies? Vic Marks, Botham or Roebuck surely mentioned it somewhere? I'll try to have a bit of a dig and see what I can find. Sarastro (talk) 21:53, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

@Sarastro1: I've surprisingly found very little. Botham doesn't mention it himself, Simon Widle's biography of him only has a short paragraph about it. I don't have Roebuck's autobiography (though have just ordered it), and Chasing Shadows doesn't mention it. Harrias ^talk 11:40, 24 September 2018 (UTC)