If Tony Blair and George Bush have had effigies burned than I'm in good company

Mike Denness

Denness is chairman of Kent and the ECB pitch committee

"It would have been a big surprise if I had been named," says Denness, fresh from the garden.

"It was nice to know that the ECB had nominated me but nobody from the ICC had contacted me about it and I hadn't been interviewed so I wasn't holding my breath.

"It was good to get away from the English winter for one or two series each year and I took pleasure in watching cricket and staying in touch with the players."

Closed book

Those pleasantries were disrupted chaotically late last year, though. His effigy was burned in the streets and he was branded "Denness the Menace" by the Indian media.

The decision to penalise Sachin Tendulkar for "action on the ball" and several of his team-mates for excessive appealing threw international cricket into crisis.

The India media were outraged by Denness' actions

Denness was deposed for the final match of the series, against ICC rules, and the match was stripped of Test status.

The softly-spoken Scotsman has attempted to close the book on those events, though, saying that anything that happened and was said remained in South Africa when he left.

"If Tony Blair and George Bush have had effigies burned than I'm in good company," he jokes.

"Of course you family at home is going to be concerned, but you really have to keep an open mind on it.

"The ICC convened a commission to look at the incident and perform a total review of match refereeing and there is really no better time to do that, with full-time referees being appointed for the first time."

Professionalism

Denness believes that the ICC has chosen the right five men for its elite panel.

And he unwittingly suggested to former West Indies captain Clive Lloyd in Sharjah that he should make a return to refereeing.

Lloyd makes a return to match-refereeing

He sees these appointments, combined with the naming this week of eight full-time Test umpires, as a first step in bringing the best officials to the top of the sport.

"If you believe that a referee is needed then this is a positive step, encouraging people to view it as a profession.

"It's the same with umpires - England is the only country where they are full-time. You've got to make it worthwhile.

"I assume they have another generation in mind - it has to work like a conveyor belt. At the end of their two-year-contracts, someone is going to decide it is not for them so new people will have to come through."

While the refereeing profession goes full time, Denness will content himself with a few more years on his summer jobs.

He is chairman of the advisory group that assesses pitch standards in English county cricket and chairman of Kent, the club he captained to six one-day titles from 1972 to '76.

And, of course, there's some work to catch up on in the garden.