Cecil Burke was a cricketer

Cricketer

A cricketer is a person who plays the sport of cricket. Official and long-established cricket publications prefer the traditional word "cricketer" over the rarely used term "cricket player"....

 who played for Auckland and, once, for New Zealand

New Zealand cricket team

The New Zealand cricket team, nicknamed the Black Caps, are the national cricket team representing New Zealand. They played their first in 1930 against England in Christchurch, New Zealand, becoming the fifth country to play Test cricket. It took the team until 1955–56 to win a Test, against the...

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A lower-order right-handed batsman and a leg-break and googly bowler, Burke, variously known as Cec or Ces, made his first-class

First-class cricket

First-class cricket is a class of cricket that consists of matches of three or more days' scheduled duration, that are between two sides of eleven players and are officially adjudged first-class by virtue of the standard of the competing teams...

 debut for Auckland in 1937-38 and then played regularly for the team up to the 1953-54 season. He was picked as a specialist bowler for the single Test match

Test cricket

Test cricket is the longest form of the sport of cricket. Test matches are played between national representative teams with "Test status", as determined by the International Cricket Council , with four innings played between two teams of 11 players over a period of up to a maximum five days...

 played in 1945-46 between New Zealand and Australia

Australian cricket team

The Australian cricket team is the national cricket team of Australia. It is the joint oldest team in Test cricket, having played in the first Test match in 1877...

, which was won comprehensively by the Australians, New Zealand failing to total 100 runs in their two innings combined. Burke took two Australian wickets – Bill Brown

Bill Brown (cricketer)

William Alfred "Bill" Brown, OAM was an Australian cricketer who played 22 Tests between 1934 and 1948, captaining his country in one Test. A right-handed opening batsman, his partnership with Jack Fingleton in the 1930s is regarded as one of the finest in Australian Test history...

 and Keith Miller

Keith Miller

Keith Ross Miller MBE was an Australian Test cricketer and a Royal Australian Air Force pilot during World War II. Miller is widely regarded as Australia's greatest ever all-rounder. Because of his ability, irreverent manner and good looks he was a crowd favourite...

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He was not picked for the single Test match of the following season, 1946-47, when MCC

Marylebone Cricket Club

Marylebone Cricket Club is a cricket club in London founded in 1787. Its influence and longevity now witness it as a private members' club dedicated to the development of cricket. It owns, and is based at, Lord's Cricket Ground in St John's Wood, London NW8. MCC was formerly the governing body of...

 toured Australia and New Zealand, but was selected for the tour to England in 1949

New Zealand cricket team in England in 1949

The New Zealand cricket team toured England in the 1949 season. The team was the fourth official touring side from New Zealand, following those in 1927, 1931 and 1937, and was by some distance the most successful to this date...

. He had a fairly undistinguished tour, taking 54 wickets at an average of 29.83 and scoring just 171 runs, and did not play in any of the Tests.