Talk:William Beldham

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[edit] A fine mess

The article needs a complete revision and every single statement in the "Career" section must be verified. In its present state, it has completely failed all the rating criteria with "no" given to all six questions. As a result, I've reverted it to stub-class.

I've removed the infobox which was completely misleading in view of the incomplete records of Beldham's time and the lack of any consistent view about statistics in the period. The infobox quoted CricketArchive's record of Beldham since 1801 and ignored his performances in "major matches" for over 15 years before that. Until there is some generally accepted consensus about statistics from the thirty years either side of 1800, it is pointless trying to summarise them in this way. For example, how can a batting average be computed when we don't even know how many times he was not out?

The only thing that can be done in the statistical (i.e., lies and damned lies) sense is to calculate his known appearances, runs, wickets and catches in all "major" or "first-class" matches during his known career and mention this in the body of the article with a clear caveat to the effect that they are figures based on the known facts only.

I'll work on the article myself when I have time but it is going to need a lot of effort. --BlackJack | ^{talk page} 05:49, 16 May 2008 (UTC)