Wisden overview
Neil Hawke played for three Australian states, for two Lancashire League clubs, and in every Test nation, and never lost his unquenchable enthusiasm for the game. Built for work, he had an ungainly asymmetrical action, but moved the ball late, bowled a well-disguised slower ball, was seldom collared and never demoralised: his best innings figures (7 for 105) and match figures (10 for 115) both arose during heavy Australian defeats. Hawke was a first-rate Australian Rules footballer, and injuries from that sport handicapped him in the second half of his career, while in later years he suffered acutely from illness. He finally lost his 20-year battle against various ailments on Christmas Day, 2000. But his lust for cricket, and for life, emerges in his autobiography Bowled Over, one of the frankest Australian cricketing memoirs. Gideon Haigh

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