Thomas Browning Burtt (22 January 1915 – 24 May 1988) was a

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

er who played in ten

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from 1947 to 1953.

Domestic career

In his last first-class match, for Canterbury against the MCC in 1954–55, he hit 24 off one over from

Johnny Wardle Johnny Wardle (8 January 1923 – 23 July 1985) was an English spin bowling cricketer whose Test Match career lasted between 1948 and 1957. His Test bowling average of 20.39 is the lowest in Test cricket by any recognised spin bowler since ...

. In

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is of three or more days scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officially adju ...

, he played 84 games, mostly for

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, between 1943 and 1955, taking 408 wickets at 22.19. His brother

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also played for Canterbury, as did his nephew Wayne Burtt. In 1937 and 1938 he also represented

at hockey.

Trivia

His 128 wickets taken on the 1949 tour of England is a record for

. In

Wisden ''Wisden Cricketers' Almanack'', or simply ''Wisden'', colloquially the Bible of Cricket, is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom. The description "Bible of cricket" (or variations thereof) has been applied to ''Wi ...

, Charles Bray said of him, "The bulk of the bowling fell on the tubby, cheerful T.B. Burtt, slow left-arm, immaculate length, good flight, who attacked the off-stump so accurately that he constantly tied down the opposing batsmen."

International career

He played ten consecutive Tests over six years, bowling long spells, taking wickets, and scoring useful runs in the tail, until he was dropped after the First Test against South Africa in 1952–53. According to Richard Boock in his biography of

Bert Sutcliffe Bert Sutcliffe (17 November 1923 – 20 April 2001) was a New Zealand Test cricketer. Sutcliffe was a successful left-hand batsman. His batting achievements on tour in England in 1949, which included four fifties and a century in the Tests, e ...

, Burtt was one of several players at the time who "paid the ultimate price for being overweight".Richard Boock, ''The Last Everyday Hero'', Longacre, Auckland, 2010, p. 100. He was overlooked for the next season's tour of South Africa, the inexperienced spinners Eric Dempster,

Matt Poore Matt Beresford Poore (1 June 1930 – 11 June 2020) was a New Zealand cricketer who played 14 Test matches for New Zealand in the 1950s. He was born in Christchurch. Domestic career A right-handed middle order batsman and handy off-spin bowler, ...

and Bill Bell going instead, and did not play another Test.

References

External links

*
Film of the 1949 Lord's Test, showing Burtt bowling
from

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Burtt, Tom 1915 births 1988 deaths New Zealand Test cricketers New Zealand cricketers Canterbury cricketers South Island cricketers New Zealand male field hockey players Cricketers from Christchurch 20th-century New Zealand sportsmen