A FORMER Essex cricketer, who became the first Scotsman to captain England, can't stop smiling after being unexpectedly named an OBE in the New Year's Honours list.
Mike Denness, who lives in Hanging Hill Lane, Hutton, currently serves as the president of Kent County Cricket Club, which he represented for 15 seasons as a player.
He also represented Essex, with whom he spent the final three seasons of his career before he retired in 1980.
The 72-year-old Scot, who was born in North Lanarkshire, said of the OBE: "It came out of the blue but what a lovely thing, especially when you look at the other people who have received honours alongside you after this year's Olympic Games success."
The right-handed batsman would later become a professional match referee.
He hit the headlines in 2001 when he became a hate figure for Indian cricket fans.
Legendary batsman Sachin Tendulkar and five of his team-mates were sanctioned by Denness – Tendulkar for ball-tampering, four for excessive appealing, and skipper Sourav Ganguly for failing to control his players during the 2001 tour by India in South Africa.
Denness' own cricketing journey started when he was eight, after his father decided to move the family within a stone's throw of Ayr Cricket Club. He said: "There was a lot of cricket being played when I was growing up.
"My father had a house built next to Ayr Cricket Club and that was where I started playing. It was on my doorstep so it was easy to get involved."
At 19 he played for Scotland and then in 1962 he was invited to trial for Kent.
He said: "I didn't know whether I'd be good enough for it but it turned out well."
Denness, who lives with partner Doreen Wadlow, played 333 times for Kent, scoring 17,047 runs at an average of 32.90.
He scored 21 centuries for the county with a highest score of 178 against Somerset, at Maidstone, in 1975.
"I don't know how I'd pick my highlights," he said. "It could be the first time I played for Kent, my first 100, or the first time I was picked for England or when I was made captain for England."
Among them, though, was 1975, when he was made Wisden Cricketer of the Year.
Denness played 28 Test matches for England – including 19 as captain. He scored 1,667 runs, including four hundreds. His best, 188, came against Australia in Melbourne on the 1974/75 Ashes tour.
Yorkshire's Geoff Boycott, who made no secret of the fact that he fancied the captaincy, only played in the first six Tests of Denness' captaincy.
The loss of Boycott was practically a fatal blow to England's chances in that series.
Indeed, during it – a series which Australia won 4-1 – England first experienced the highly intimidating partnership of Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thompson, two of the fastest and most aggressive bowlers the game has seen.
