I don't believe I've ever used the word 'bleg' before but I'm going to use it now. This post is a bleg.
One of the things I've been doing since early this summer - and, I'd better emphasize, only one of the things - has been poring over Ashes Test scorecards. Why, you might wonder, would a person want to do that? But let's keep things simple and just proceed.
I've come across a discrepancy which I'd like to try and resolve. For the third Test between Australia and England in the 1881-82 series, Bill Frindall in The Wisden Book of Test Cricket gives Australia's two innings totals as 260 and 66 for 4. The volume Wisden on the Ashes, edited by Steven Lynch, has instead 262 and 64 for 4.
Ralph Barker and Irving Rosenwater, England V Australia and David Frith, England versus Australia: A Pictorial History... are in line with Frindall on this, giving 260 and 66 for 4. On the other hand, Sydney Smith, History of the Tests, Cricinfo and Wikipedia all favour 262 and 64 for 4.
To cap it all, there are at least three sources that offer a compromise, going for 260 and 64 for 4. These are: B.J. Wakley, Classic Centuries in the Test Matches between England and Australia; William P.H. Sparks, Test Cricket: A Unique Record...; and James Rivers, England versus Australia.
How am I to find out the truth of the matter?
Update on 1 October. Thanks to my friend Harriet Monkhouse and her fellow deputy editor at Wisden, Steven Lynch, I now have what I take to be an authoritative answer on this: Australia's scores in that Test were 262 and 64 for 4. The source is Ray Webster, First-Class Cricket in Australia, Volume 1 1850-51 to 1941-42.