Bill O'Reilly was arguably the greatest leg-spinner until Shane Warne arrived.
He also fought a few battles with Don Bradman, both on and off the field – though neither lost professional respect for the other.
That, we know.
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Not as well-known is a 21st-century war cricket fans fought on his behalf.
There are several Bill O'Reillys, six of them reasonably famous. You can see the list here, on the disambiguation page: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_O…
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In 2005, a Wikipedia user tried to push a motion to make the political commentator the default page.
If there are multiple Wikipedia pages on the same name and one is significantly more popular than the others, that becomes the default page.
Do note the bit "This article is about the Roman ruler. For other uses, see Julius Caesar (disambiguation) and Caesar (disambiguation)."
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It was not passed.
Status quo was maintained.
This was raised again in 2006. And 2007. And so on, until 2016.
The political commentator's supporters cite popularity on Google searches.
Tiger's supporters, well, you can guess what they said.
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My favourite comment runs: "In 200 years time, people will still be talking about the cricketer all over the world. Just not in America. Can we please not have to revisit this decision time after time after time?
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"The stats show considerable interest, discussion of and traffic to both individuals, despite one of them finding fame in a period long preceding the internet age, making this a good example of the need of disambiguation.
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"Incidentally, I'd never heard of the TV personality before the first of these move requests. The American commentator (note, the Aussie was also a commentator) seems to have little geographic reach beyond the USA.
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"Finally, I'd just like to point out that the cricketer's article is an example of Wikipedia's finest work."
Bradman called O'Reilly the greatest bowler he had seen.
But had anyone fought for him as much as cricket-loving Wikipedia moderators?
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Cricket Australia has discussed switching broadcast rights back to Channel 9.
I was obviously excited. Then @rickeyrecricket asked me why a some of us found the news exciting.
It is difficult to explain, but there is no harm trying.
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And I have a feeling that a lot of 1980s cricket fans will agree.
Let me first explain what watching cricket on Doordarshan used to be like – when the antenna worked, anyway.
There was one channel, where everything had to be crammed in.
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They used to interrupt coverage abruptly for news, University Grants Commission programmes, live telecast of the Prime Minister inaugurating random institutes, and more.
But we still waited, because we knew that this was all we were going to get.
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