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| Full name | Michael Henry Denness | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | (1940-12-01)1 December 1940 Bellshill,Lanarkshire, Scotland | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Died | 19 April 2013(2013-04-19) (aged 72) London, England | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Height | 5 ft 11 in (1.80 m) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Batting | Right-handed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Bowling | Right armoff break Right armmedium | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Role | Batsman,match referee | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| International information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| National side | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Test debut (cap 444) | 21 August 1969 v New Zealand | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Last Test | 14 July 1975 v Australia | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ODI debut (cap 21) | 5 September 1973 v West Indies | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Last ODI | 18 June 1975 v Australia | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Domestic team information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Years | Team | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1959–1967 | Scotland | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1962–1976 | Kent | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1977–1980 | Essex | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Career statistics | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Source:Cricinfo,22 March 2009 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Michael Henry Denness OBE (1 December 1940 – 19 April 2013)[1][2] was a Scottishcricketer who played forEngland,Scotland,Kent andEssex.
Scotland did not have a representative international team at the time of Denness' career, so he could only play for England atTest andODI level. He was the sixth player born in Scotland to play for England, afterGregor MacGregor,Alec Kennedy,Ian Peebles,David Larter andEric Russell, but remains the only England captain to be born in Scotland (Douglas Jardine andTony Greig had Scottish parents, but Jardine was born in Bombay and Greig in South Africa).[1][3]
Denness later became anICC match referee. He was one of the inaugural inductees into theScottish Sports Hall of Fame and was aWisden Cricketer of the Year in 1975. He was president ofKent County Cricket Club in 2012–13.
Denness was born inBellshill,North Lanarkshire, Scotland.[1] His father was employed byW.D. & H.O. Wills, a tobacco importer and cigarette manufacturer and part ofImperial Tobacco.
After his family moved to Ayr, he was educated atAyr Academy, where he played rugby withIan Ure andIan McLauchlan and played for Ayr Cricket Club atCambusdoon, where he was coached by former Sussex playerCharles Oakes. Denness was selected to play cricket for Scotland againstIreland in 1959 while still at school. Former Kent bowlerJimmy Allan was also in the Scotland team, and he suggested Denness's name to his former county.E. W. Swanton also met Denness in Ayr and put in a good word, andLes Ames invited Denness to a trial in 1961.
Denness made his first-class debut forKent againstEssex in July 1962 but was dismissed byJim Laker twice on a turning pitch for 0 and 3. But he quickly established himself in the team, scoring over 1,000 runs in the 1963 season. From 1964 he played as anopening batsman in partnership withBrian Luckhurst.
Denness became a tall, stylish right-handed batsman. He received his county cap in 1965 and Kent won theCounty Championship in1970 for the first time since 1913. He succeededColin Cowdrey as Kent captain at the beginning of the 1972 cricket season, having often substituted for Cowdrey when he was on Test duty. Under his captaincy, the club won theJohn Player League three times (1972,1973,1976), theBenson & Hedges Cup twice (1973,1976), and theGillette Cup once (in1974; also his benefit season). Denness was aWisden Cricketer of the Year in 1975. After 5 years as captain, the club voted to replace him as captain byAsif Iqbal at the end of the 1976 season.
After being dismissed as captain at Kent, he moved to Essex in 1977, helping the club to win the County Championship and Benson & Hedges Cup in 1979. He retired after the1980 English cricket season.
In all, he made 501 appearances infirst-class cricket and 232 more inone day matches. He scored over 30,000 domestic runs in all, including 33 first-class hundreds and a best of 195, and six one-day centuries with a top score of 188 not out. He also took two wickets with his occasional bowling.[4][5] He scored over 1,000 first-class runs in 14 English cricket seasons.
After he retired as a player at the end of the 1980 English cricket season Denness became2nd XI captain at Essex and also worked as a coach. Outside cricket, he had jobs in finance, insurance and public relations.[6]
Denness played forEngland in 28 Tests and was the captain on 19 occasions, winning six, losing five and drawing eight matches. He made his Test debut in the final test against New Zealand at The Oval in 1969. After the cancellation of the 1970 South Africa tour, Denness played in the first match against theRest of the World XI in 1970, before being dropped. He was vice-captain on the tour to India in 1972-3, captained byTony Lewis, and he was appointed to replaceRay Illingworth as captain in September 1973.
As captain, he suffered a lack of support fromGeoffrey Boycott, who had hoped to be appointed captain instead, and these tensions contributed to the downfall of Denness as a skipper. Boycott played in the first 6 Tests with Denness as captain, including the five matches in the 1–1 drawn series in the West Indies and the first Test of a 3–0 whitewash against India, during which Denness scored his first two Test centuries, but Boycott then refused to play under Denness and remained out of the Test team until 1977. After a 0–0 drawn three-match series against Pakistan at home in 1974, Boycott's boycott left England exposed in several matches against the fast bowling ofDennis Lillee andJeff Thomson in the Ashes series in Australia in 1974-5.[4] Denness dropped himself from the England team for the 4th Test at Sydney after scoring only 65 runs in 6 innings (6, 26, 2, 20, 8, 2) in the first three Tests,[7] although he was selected again for the 5th Test in Adelaide after his replacementJohn Edrich was injured, and achieving his highest Test score of 188 at Melbourne in the 6th Test to win by an innings.[8] The victory was little consolation, as Australia had already won four of the six matches in the series. While in Australia, Denness received an envelope that had been sent with the address "Mike Denness, cricketer". The letter inside read, "Should this reach you, the post office clearly thinks more of your ability than I do."[9]
He scored another large Test century, 181, when the tour continued to New Zealand, and captained England in the1975 Cricket World Cup, losing to Australia in the semi-final. He stepped down from thecaptaincy after losing the 1st Test of the 1975 Ashes series againstAustralia, at Edgbaston, by an innings (he had been dismissed for 3 and 8). He was replaced byTony Greig and never played for England again.
Denness scored 1,667 runs in his 28 Tests, including four centuries. His seven accompanying half-centuries helped to leave him with a Testbatting average of 39.69. His ODI career was less successful, playing only 12 matches and scoring 264 runs at an average of 29.33, with a best of 66.[4]
Denness was appointed as anICC match referee in 1996. He caused controversy after thePort ElizabethTest betweenSouth Africa and the visitingIndians in 2001-2 when he sanctioned six Indian players, four includingVirender Sehwag andHarbhajan Singh for excessive appealing,Sachin Tendulkar for alleged ball-tampering, and the captainSourav Ganguly for failing to control his players. At first, India refused to accept the sanctions and named the players for the following Test match. TheInternational Cricket Council responded by stripping the game of Test match status. Soon after, both theBCCI and ICC decided to establish a referee committee to verify Denness's conclusions. The match referee was heavily criticised for failing to explain his actions at a press conference, thus infuriating the Indian cricket establishment.[10] The BCCI later decided to forget the incident on humanitarian grounds, after Denness underwent heart surgery.[11]
In March 2002, Denness' role as a match referee came to an end, when the ICC rejected his bid for their newly formedElite Panel of Referees, although he had been put forward by theECB as a candidate.[12]
Denness became a committee member at Kent, and was chairman of cricket at Kent until he resigned in 2004 over a dispute involvingAndrew Symonds. He was president ofKent County Cricket Club in 2012–13, Denness was appointedOfficer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2013 New Year Honours for services to sport.[13]
He published his autobiography,I Declare, in 1977. He was an inaugural member of both theScottish Sports Hall of Fame andScottish Cricket Hall of Fame.[14][15]
He married his childhood sweetheart, Molly, in 1964. They had a son and two daughters. They were divorced.[citation needed]
Denness died at the age of 72, on 19 April 2013, after a long battle with cancer.[3] He was survived by his partner, Doreen Wadlow, and his three children.
| Sporting positions | ||
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| Preceded by | English national cricket captain 1973/4–1975 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Kent County Cricket Clubcaptain 1972–1976 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | England ODI Captain 1973–1975 | Succeeded by |
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| International | |
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