First-class Debut
At the start of the 1948–49 season, Burke scored 134 and took a total of 2/8 for New South Wales Colts—a youth team—against their Queensland counterparts. At the age of 18, this propelled him into his debut for New South Wales in the 1948–49 Sheffield Shield season, even though there was no international touring team during the season and his state was thus at full strength with many Test players. In his first match, Burke scored 76 not out and bowled two wicketless maidens against Western Australia as his state took an innings victory. He then scored half-centuries in his only innings in the next two games, before his form petered out towards the end of the season, failing to pass 40 again and totalling only 46 runs in his last five innings. This included an opportunity in the Test trial match between the strongest players in Australia at the end of the season, as part of Hassett's XI. He scored only 11 and 19, and was not selected for the 1949–50 tour of South Africa. Burke ended his debut season with 336 runs at 37.33 in seven matches, and his occasional bowling yielded three wickets at 39.00, having delivered only 29 overs. His first wickets at first-class level were Victoria's Test batsmen Ken Meuleman and Sam Loxton as he took 2/38 in the second innings of his fifth match.
The following season, with the Test players in South Africa, Burke had more opportunities in the New South Wales team, but he failed to pass 20 in two early-season matches, and was dropped, spending six weeks out of the team before returning in mid-December. Aged 20, he scored 62 and took 3/54 upon his recall against South Australia, and then carried his bat to score for 162 not out against Victoria, whose bowling was headed by Jack Iverson, whose folded-finger spin took 6/27 in a Test the following year. In his five Shield matches for the season, Burke scored 292 runs at 41.71 and seven wickets at 33.42.
Burke was selected for an Australian Second XI that toured New Zealand under the leadership of Bill Brown at the end of the season, with the first-choice team still in South Africa. He started his career for Australia productively, scoring 101 in a non-first-class match against Hutt Valley on debut. Burke then scored 60 and 68 not out in the next match against Auckland—a first-class fixture—before taking 3/24 in the second innings as the hosts held on for a draw with two wickets in hand. He scored 89 in the next match against Waikato—another non-first-class match—but did little else on the tour. He failed to take another wicket and passed 20 only once in his five remaining first-class innings. He made nine in his only innings in the one-off match against New Zealand, which was drawn.
Read more about this topic: Jim Burke (cricketer)
Famous quotes containing the word debut:
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