Wikipedia:Peer review/International cricket in South Africa (1971 to 1981)/archive1

International cricket in South Africa (1971 to 1981)

I don't really know where to go with this article, but I'd like to boost it up to featured status. Any advice would be welcome, jguk 20:50, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I believe that India was the first to deny its cricket team any sort of interaction with South Africa due to its apartheid policies. Can you verify?  =Nichalp (talk · contribs)= 18:57, Apr 3, 2005 (UTC)

I can't. England, Australia and New Zealand were the only countries to play South Africa before isolation. Certainly India was strongly against apartheid - and Indira Gandhi's government was hostile towards those with any connections to South Africa. But so were the West Indies - some governments more than others. Lester Bird's government, and the Guyanese government were probably as strong in their condemnation as India (of course, the other West Indian nations were also anti-apartheid - but, as far as I am aware, were not as forceful, particularly where it comes to cricketing issues - as these two). So whether India was the first to go against interaction with South African cricketers or not - I do not know.

Incidentally, a blind eye seems to have been taken to the English county championship, where South Africans, Indians, Windians and Pakistanis all played. But any time there was any hint of a representative match, or a match in South Africa itself, the politicians came out again. Finally, I'm not aware of any particular issues the PCB had, and Sri Lanka only came to the fore in the 1980s when they gained Test status, and the rebel Arosa Sri Lanka team toured SA, jguk 17:45, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• you use numbered external links, which are bad style. You could add a link title, but even better would be to convert them to proper footnotes
• there is no photograph of cricket actually being played and/or cricket players.
• recent agreement is that footnotes should not be used for digressions.
• I'm not sure that the lead image is really the best for this article, since a flag isn't really cricket specific.
• possibly too much on individual matches ; might be better to cover the effect on the careers of SA cricketers.

Mozzerati 20:51, 2005 Apr 3 (UTC)

Many thanks for your comments.

• I've modified the way the external links are presented so they no longer appear as a numbered link. I've left the link in-text as I think it looks better this way - and is consistent with how the rest of games are presented.
• I'll look for what photos I can find that are fair use. I'm doubtful of finding any action shots of the games referred to though - as I've never seen one. There should be some piccis of some of the key players though.
• I haven't seen that recent agreement - may I ask where it is? I've changed the presentation of the info that was in the footnotes so there are now no footnotes.
• If I can find some fair use piccis of players (or better still a match - if there's one I can find) I'll replace it. I'll keep the "whites only" notice though, as it helps illustrate why South Africa was isolated.
• I've recently got a number of new sources - Ali Bacher's autobiography and Mike Procter's book on Cricket in isolation-era South Africa and Mike Procter on Cricket. I'll add info from here about the players soon, jguk 18:03, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)