Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Don Tallon

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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 21:45, 1 April 2008.

[edit] Don Tallon

Don Tallon, wicket-keeper on Don Bradman's invincibles. Part of a WP:CRIC FT drive. Has a wide range of pictures and sources. Blnguyen (vote in the photo straw poll) 08:36, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Resolved stuff from The Rambling Man (talk) 07:54, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Support my major concerns all addressed. The Rambling Man (talk) 12:43, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment - I'm giving this a run-through and will try to help with wikilinking 1st occurrences of jargon. --Dweller (talk) 11:05, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
    • Q1: In Perry, on p.190, does it specifically say that Queensland were weak at the time?
Yeah they did. Bill Brown was the first Test player from QLD AFAIK, and Tallon was the second. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 04:50, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
    • Q2: And were there only 4 state teams at the time?
Yeah. WA joined in 46 and TAS is 80 or so. Graham McKenzie was the first regular WA player, in the early 1960s. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 04:50, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
    • Q3: What's an "unofficial reason"? Is it speculation, or was there a leak? Unclear.
Leak. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 04:50, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
    • Q4: Article implies that the spinners would make the ball swing. Is that incorrect?
Fixed. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 04:50, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
    • Q5: Is the information about Barnett's mistakes in the 1938 Ashes needed? ... in such detail?
Well, why not... Blnguyen (bananabucket) 04:50, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
    • Q6: Do you think it's POV/OR to say that Tallon's 2 world records in 38/39 were a response to the Aussie selectors?
Yeah, I guess I imported that from the thinking of the source, I rm the specific ref to the selectors. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 04:50, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
    • Q7: What do you mean by "furious" in "his catching and stumping style became more furious"?
A more animated style of play. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 04:50, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
    • Q8: Post-war subsection heading seems inaccurate for contents
Fixed. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 04:50, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
    • Q9: What did Tallon do between 1943 and resumption of 1st class cricket (45? 45-46? 46? At least a couple of years)
Not discussed in the books. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 04:50, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

More as I find em. --Dweller (talk) 17:13, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

did more jargon links, Blnguyen (bananabucket) 04:50, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Continuing here:
    • Q10: The refs at the end of the parag about his Test debut need some attention. Does one of them need to move to a prior sentence?
Done. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:03, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
    • Q11: His big stand with Lindwall - notable for his cutting or his driving or both? Currently, it's a bit of a muddle.
Fixed. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:03, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
    • Q12: MOSNUM "allows" twenty as a word, but consistency is important. I suggest all numbers above nine are numerals and am correcting as I find them.
ok. Thanks, Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:03, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
    • Q13: Wetting his inner glove is fascinating - why did he do it normally (it's clear why he didn't in chilly old Pom-land!)
The book doesnt expand unfortunately, if it is common in keeping textbooks then I'm not aware. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:03, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
    • Q14: Bruised finger story on 48 tour - was this batting or keeping? In the nets?
In a tour game. Probably against Surrey, while keeping. Clarified. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:03, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
    • Q15: Bruised finger story segues uncomfortably into discussion about playing conditions and why Tallon wouldn't get many opportunities... when a reader would expect the parag to go on to say to what extent the injury impacted on his opportunities. It's jarring, though not as jarring as playing a Lindwall bouncer with one's finger.
Tweaked and moved the shiny ball stuff to the front. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:03, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
      • I split the parag in two, but some of these comments still apply. --Dweller (talk) 15:12, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
    • Q16: Article earlier talked about Tallon standing up to medium pacers. As Johnson also played Tests, he must have had some opportunities to stand-up to bowling. This makes "depriving Tallon of an opportunity to show his stumping abilities standing up the batsmen." seem slightly too strong. (there's also a missing "to" in that sentence) Suggest "depriving Tallon of an opportunity to continue his profitable partnership with the spinner." or some such.
Tweaked to mention the McCool-Tallon partnership specifically being broken up. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:03, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
    • Q17: Even if that's what Perry says (does he?), "allowing them to win the match by eight wickets." seems too strong for me, coming across as OR. If he'd dropped those chances, there's no reason they'd not have been "allowed" to win the match anyway - they were a pretty good side and England were not very strong, according to some RS. Suggest replacing "allowing" with "helping", except it's already used in that sentence, but that's the tone I'd aim for.
Tweaked. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:03, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
    • Q18: I realise I may have made a mistake and the finger bruised against Lindwall may not have been the same one later injured. Please clarify. If not, what's the relevance of the earlier injury?
Cleared up. Tallon had a few mishaps initially while he was acclimatising and adapting to English conditions. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:03, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
    • Q19: Yorker length/ankle height is a (slightly inaccurate, if I'm picky) tautology. Why not just stick with the easier understood ankle height?
rm redundancy. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:03, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
    • Q20: Would be nice to clarify how rare it was for Tallon (or any keeper) to bowl. Perhaps a snippet of statistics (how many overs he bowled in F-C cricket v on this occasion?)
Pointed out that it is about 50 overs in his whole career, about the same as one match's work for a specialits bowler. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:03, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
    • Q21: Difficult to justify the terse treatment of the 50-51 Ashes series. The previous ones (won by Australia) have been lingered over; this is dismissed in a couple of sentences. Tallon and Australia performed badly; comes across as NPOV to skip over the details.
I know, but I'm not sure what I can do, since he was picked as a keeper, if he failed in those days, it wasn't such a big deal for keepers to bat poorly. A lot of keeprs in those days averaged 15 throuhgout their careers. Secondly, the first two series featured a lot of famous catches, so they are explained, similar to famous centuries for batsmen. If he dropped heaps of the catches, the books didn't mention it and the scorecard can't indicate such things. Actually Australia won 4-1 that year, and in both Lemmon and Perry's minibios, they both had a large emphasis on 46-47 and 48 because of the iconic catches. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:03, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
    • Q22: I've added "Deafy" to the infobox - probably needs citing there as well as in the text. Did he have no nickname before then?
Cited. No other nickname cited in book. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:03, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
    • Q23: Re Image:Don Tallon stumping.jpg. Pedantically, the image needs a little more explanation - I assume he's in the middle of appealing for the stumping? The image doesn't actually show him doing the action of stumping, but the aftermath and I think this could be clarified. Would also be nice if we identified any more detail about who/when, but that might be tricky.
The book didnt have dates or the batsman, but I changed it to past tense. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:03, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
    • Q24: Could his height be given using one of those clever thingys that means I can see it in imperial (how appropriate for a Pom) figures too?
Its in teh infobox- not my handiwork. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:03, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
    • Q25: "High standing" immediately following comments about his unusual height looks like a bad pun, even by my standards of bad puns. (Cf "imperial" above)
changed to acclaim. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:03, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
    • Q26: I agree with someone else who thinks it odd you've compared his batting with modern day wks. I think it'd be better to compare him to the best of his day, at least in addition to Gilly and Sanga.
Found two of his English contemporaries
    • Q27: "Constant" appealing is misleading - I never saw him play, but I am 100% sure he wasn't constantly appealing.
Changed to frequent. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:03, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Done, at last. Sorry for delay. --Dweller (talk) 11:46, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

  • Support - I have total faith that Blnguyen will fix all of the above that are appropriate to be fixed and will firmly slap me down where I've made a silly error. --Dweller (talk) 11:46, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
All done now, if possible, I hope. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:03, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
My faith eminently justified. We're all done here. --Dweller (talk) 12:00, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Comments Not particularly happy with the world today and that may reflect in some of the comments ....

  • Tallon was part of Don Bradman's Invincibles of 1948 and was recognised as one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1949 for his performances with the Invincibles.

Two invincibles in one line.

  • Tallon missed selection during the 1951–52 season due to a combination of health reasons due to stomach ulcers, age, deafness and increasingly error-prone glovework

Two due to in one line.

  • Hassett and his deputy Arthur Morris then made the decision to drop Tallon in place of Gil Langley

My English isn't very good but "in place of" doesn't look correct.

  • Tallon’s Test batting average of 17.13 paled in comparison to that of contemporary wicket-keepers such as Australia’s Adam Gilchrist and Sri Lanka's Kumar Sangakkara, both of whom have made a double century and more than ten centuries each.

Very awkward comparision. If he is to compared with someone at all, why with two from the 2000s ?

  • During the First Test at Trent Bridge, Tallon took a total of four catches, including two difficult catches to dismiss Washbrook and Edrich at the start of the second innings, which helped Australia to seize the initiative and win the match by eight wickets.

Loooong sentence

  • Among his three catches was a diving effort after Washbrook inside edged a Toshack full toss downwards at Tallon’s ankle at yorker length. Bradman described the catch as "miraculous".

It was edged towards his ankle, why did he dive ?

  • Tallon combined with McCool in four stumpings and two catches,[23] registering 170 first-class dismissals in only 50 matches.

The second half looks awkward.

  • Tallon was worried that his poor batting might lead to him being replaced, but was retained as Australia took an innings victory in Sydney.

"Took" an innings victory ? Not sure I have seen that often.

  • He performed strongly, with four catches and two stumpings and scoring 30.

"Strongly" ?

  • The score was 2/88 as the man who held the Test world record score of 364 was dismissed

Do we need "the man who held the ... " ? There are several more peacocks in the description of that Test.

  • By series end, Tallon had set a Test record of twenty dismissals

Just an Australian record

  • Bradman injured himself during the marathon innings in a rare stint at the bowling crease after the specialist bowlers had failed to break the Englishmen. With ten men, Australia fell to its heaviest innings defeat in Test history and the series was drawn

It was nine (Fings too).

  • He also struck a century before lunch in a 90-minute session against New South Wales in Brisbane, the first player to achieve such a feat in Queensland history

Just to be sure - was the session of 90 minutes or did he score 100 in 90 minutes. He came in to bat after 21 runs had been added to the overnight score, so if the session was of 90 minutes, the 100 would have come in around 70 minutes.

  • In 1935–36, Tallon was the top Queensland batsman with 503 runs at a batting average of 55.88.[8]

It would be more helpful is the reference for things like this is CA's series average instead of the Pollard book. Tintin

I've fixed these issues I think, although the value of "Cathces win matches" is why Hutton's value is described. The reason that batting wicket-keepers is in there is because Tallon was regarded as great purely on glovework style, rather than with batting included. The source was unclear on the century in a session so I kept in ambiguous. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 08:13, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Comments All sources look good to me! Ealdgyth - Talk 13:39, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Support as a minor cotributor. Comprehensive, well referenced article. -- Mattinbgn\talk 11:09, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.