Former Kent and England captain Mike Denness dies at 72

Mike Denness (1 December 1940 – 19 April 2013), the former Kent and England captain, has died at the age of 72 after a long battle with cancer.

Born in Scotland, he played 28 Tests and 12 one-day internationals in a career that spanned almost 22 years. Even after retirement, he kept contributing to the game as he became an ICC match referee.

Denness has the distinction of being the first and the only Scot to captain England and led the team in 19 of his 28 Tests. However, it was a highly controversial tenure as captain, especially his tense relationship with former England opener Geoff Boycott. Although he drew a Test series in the West Indies in 1973-74, the team was blown away in the Ashes by Lillee and Thomson the following winter down under in 1974-75. Denness, after having scored only 65 runs in six innings, dropped himself for the fourth Test in Sydney although he later returned after an Lillee broke the ribs of John Edrich to score a magnificent 188 at the MCG which, at the time, was the highest score by an England captain in Australia.

In his first-class career, he played for Kent and Essex, where he amassed more than 25,000 runs. He was also awarded an OBE for services to cricket.

Denness was in his last week as Kent president when he passed away and his successor to the post, Bob Bevan, said : “Michael Henry Denness was the finest cricketer ever born in Scotland by a considerable distance. Both on and off the field, he epitomised the cricketing term “playing a straight bat”.

“He was a man of the utmost honesty and integrity. The cricketing counties of Kent and Essex, the whole world of cricket and my wife and I, personally, have lost one of our greatest friends.”

David Collier, the ECB chief executive, said: “Mike was a man who gave so much to our game in so many different ways as a player, captain, match referee and administrator. I had the honour of working with Mike in my first role in cricket administration at Essex and Mike was a wonderful source of advice and knowledge. He will be sorely missed by all – especially by everyone at Kent.”

In India though, he will always be remembered as the controversial match referee who, during the Port Elizabeth Test in 2001-02, banned six Indian players, including Sachin Tendulkar (for ball tampering), causing such an uproar in the Indian media, with some sections even dubbing him as a racist. As a result, both the Indian and South African boards banned Denness from officiating the next match at Centurion. The ICC responded strongly by withdrawing the Test status of that match.