Jim Burke (cricketer)
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 Australia (AUS) |
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| Batting style | Right-hand bat | |
| Bowling type | Right-arm offbreak | |
| Tests | First-class | |
| Matches | 24 | 130 |
| Runs scored | 1280 | 7563 |
| Batting average | 34.59 | 45.01 |
| 100s/50s | 3/5 | 21/35 |
| Top score | 189 | 220 |
| Balls bowled | 814 | 8540 |
| Wickets | 8 | 101 |
| Bowling average | 28.75 | 29.11 |
| 5 wickets in innings | 0 | 3 |
| 10 wickets in match | 0 | 0 |
| Best bowling | 4/37 | 6/40 |
| Catches/stumpings | 18/0 | 58/0 |
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Test debut: 2 February 1951 |
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James Wallace Burke (born June 12, 1930, Mosman, New South Wales, died February 2, 1979, Manly, New South Wales) was an Australian cricketer who played in 24 Tests from 1951 to 1959.
A right-handed opening batsman, Burke was in the Australian Test team at the age of 20, and scored a century in the second innings of his first match against England at Adelaide in 1950-51. He looked set for a long Test career, but within two years he had lost his place in both Test and state sides, and went to the Lancashire League in England to rebuild his confidence and his career.
The rebuilding worked. Burke was chosen for the 1956 Australian tour of England and became the regular opening partner to Colin McDonald. In a low-scoring series in a wet summer dominated by England's Jim Laker, Burke topped the Test match averages and was a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1957. He then toured South Africa, India and Pakistan successfully, though his batting became increasingly dour. His century at Mumbai (then Bombay) remains the slowest by an Australian Test player and his 189 against South Africa at Cape Town, his highest Test score, took more than nine hours. Against the England team at Brisbane in 1958-59, he took 250 minutes to score 28 not out.
Burke was also an off break bowler and took more than 100 wickets in first-class cricket. But his bowling action was doubtfully legal and at the height of the "throwing" controversy in 1958-59 he was not risked in Test matches.
Criticised for slow scoring and for his bowling, and declaring himself unwilling to face fast bowling of increasing fierceness, Burke retired rather suddenly after the 1958-59 series against MCC. He later became a well-known commentator on cricket for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
A popular and humorous figure and a great golfer, Burke hid personal and financial worries. In February 1979, while a member of the regular ABC commentary team for The Ashes Tests, he bought a shotgun from a Sydney store and killed himself with it.
