The career of Mike Denness, one of England’s unluckiest captains but a fine batsman and outstanding county leader, was assessed through his Wisden obituary in the 2014 Almanack.
It was Mike Denness’s lasting misfortune that his reign as England captain was sandwiched between Ray Illingworth and Tony Greig. He could not match Illingworth’s tactical intelligence or Greig’s hyperactive charisma – and suffered by inevitable comparison. Instead, Denness was consigned to history as the leader who withdrew from the line of fire during the 1974-75 Ashes, when Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson were at their most ferocious.
Yet this overshadowed the fact that, in 19 Tests in charge, he won more games than he lost, and scored four centuries. Denness was also the most successful captain in Kent’s history, leading them to six one-day trophies in five seasons.
In a glorious era for the county, a team that bristled with box-office names entertained large crowds shoehorned into the St Lawrence Ground. Amid the tension and euphoria, Denness was a leader of cool authority. “He never panicked once,” said Alan Knott.
Fletcher gave him a warm reception at Essex, where his experience proved important to an emerging team. “We saw him as the final cog in the machine,” Fletcher said. “He was absolutely brilliant – an Essex man from the day he arrived.” Denness spent four years at Chelmsford, helping the club to a first Championship in 1979.
In 1996 he became an ICC match referee, and in November 2001 was caught up in an ugly dispute during the second Test between South Africa and India at Port Elizabeth. Denness imposed penalties on six Indian players, including Sachin Tendulkar for interfering with the ball without informing the umpires what he was doing. The punishment prompted outrage in India, and the BCCI threatened to bring their team home if Denness was not withdrawn from the third Test. The game went ahead, but Denness was denied entry, and the ICC declared the match unofficial.
In the 1990s, to the delight of both sides, there was a rapprochement with Kent and he became cricket chairman in 2001, resigning three years later in protest at an incident at Worcester when Andrew Symonds refused to acknowledge Ed Smith’s stand-in captaincy. Denness became club president in 2012 and, though far from well, he attended many county events, touring the tents at Canterbury Week. He died in his final week in office.
