Mike Denness

Michael Henry "Mike" Denness (OBE; born December 1, 1940 † April 19, 2013 ) was a Scottish cricketer who has played for Scotland and England, as well as Essex and Kent.

Denness was the only Scottish-born player, who was captain of the England team. Two other English captains, Douglas Jardine and Tony Greig, also had Scottish parents.

After his active career as a player he was referee for the International Association ICC match. He was one of the first members of which were recorded in 2002 in the new Scottish Sports Hall of Fame and was a Wisden Cricketers of the Year of 1975. On April 19, 2013 he died of cancer.

Playing career

Denness played in 28 Tests, scoring 1,667 runs and four Century's. He reached his highest result by 188 runs in 1975 against Australia. English captain he was in 19 games, of which he won six and lost five, with eight draws. The lack of support from Geoffrey Boycott made ​​him as captain difficult to create, especially Boycotts absence in games against Australia. After the first test of the 1975 Ashes series against Australia Denness resigned as captain. During a stay in Australia, he received a letter with the words " Mike Denness, cricketer " on the envelope. The text was: "Should this reach you, the post office CLEARLY thinks more of your ability than I DO. "

National played Denness 1959-1980 for the two clubs County of Kent, for which he was captain, and Essex. In 501 first-class and 232 one-day games he scored more than 30,000 runs together. He reached 33 first-class Century's with a high score of 195 runs and six one-day Century's with a high score of 188 *. In the years 1970 and 1979 he won with Kent and Essex, the County Championship. Eight times he won one of the major English one-day competitions.

Match Referee controversy

In his capacity as ICC match referee, it imposed after a test between South Africa and India in Port Elizabeth locks for six of the Indian players. India ignored this decision and asked the players for the next test against South Africa back on. Whereupon the International Cricket Council (ICC ) this game, withdrew the test status. Later, the ICC Denness ' decision revised to some of the Indian players. Denness was heavily criticized for having his decision not to offer any justification during a press conference.

In March 2002 Denness was no longer considered by the ICC when he drew up the list of the newly created Elite Panel of ICC Referees, although the British Association had set him for it.

During his time as president of the Kent County Cricket Club Denness was admitted to the Order of the British Empire with the New Years ' Honours List 2013.