He played
minor county cricket for
Staffordshire from the age of sixteen, and appeared for
Lancashire in four games in 1939, taking
George Headley's wicket as the first of 339 in
first-class matches. After losing perhaps his best years to
World War II, during which he fought at
Tobruk, he resumed his career for Lancashire in 1946 and became a mainstay of the team, recording 1,000 runs in a season eleven times. He toured Australia in the 1946–47 Ashes series, compiling an obdurate 60 at Sydney and featuring in a brave stand of 118 with
Norman Yardley in Melbourne. He was involved in a pivotal incident in the first Test at Brisbane when he claimed to have caught
Don Bradman at second slip for 28 from the bowling of
Bill Voce, only for the umpire to rule the batsman not out. Bradman went on to make 187. Ikin went on MCC's disastrous
1947/48 tour of the West Indies under
Gubby Allen and was understandably less successful, but he scored 625 runs at an average of 89.28 on the
Commonwealth XI tour of India and Ceylon in 1950/51. In Cyril Washbrook's benefit match against the
1948 Australians, Ikin had reached 90 when Bradman instructed
Keith Miller to bowl. Miller refused, noting that Ikin had been a
Rat of Tobruk, but his fast bowling partner
Ray Lindwall denied Ikin his century, bowling him for 99. Ikin took a
hat-trick against
Somerset in 1949, and recorded his highest score of 192 against
Oxford University in 1951. Gradually, injury and fragile health took its toll, and Ikin retired at the end of the 1957 season, with 17,968 first-class runs to his name. He resumed his minor county career with success for Staffordshire, playing on until 1968 and served as assistant manager on the 1965/66 MCC tour of Australia. nb. Jack Ikin's benefit match was against county champions Surrey in 1953. ==References==