Dennis Amiss

Dennis Leslie Amiss (born 7 April 1943) is a former English cricketer and cricket administrator. He played for both Warwickshire and England. Amiss is known for scoring the first ever century in ODI history, which was also his debut match. A right-handed batsman, he was a stroke maker particularly through extra cover and midwicket – his two favourite areas to score runs. He was an accomplished batsman in all forms of the game. He averaged 42.86 in first-class, 35.06 in List-A, 46.30 in Tests and 47.72 in One Day Internationals. In first-class cricket he scored 102 centuries, and his England record amassed over 50 Tests ranks him with the best England has produced.

Early years Amiss was born at Harborne in Birmingham. He suffered a serious back injury whilst playing football in his teenage years, which entailed him starting each day of his sporting life undergoing stretching routines to loosen up. He has the distinction of scoring the first ever One Day International century (103 in only the second One Day International on 24 August 1972) which is also the first instance of a debutant scoring a century in ODI. Amiss along with Keith Fletcher is also credited to have shared the first ever partnership of hundred runs in the same match. He ended with an ODI batting average of 47.72, which excepting those players to have played fewer than five times, remains the third highest of any England batsman who has completed his career.

Amiss played World Series Cricket in the late 1970s in Australia; during the 1978 World Series Cricket tournament, he became the first player to wear a batting helmet regularly.

Amiss was banned from international cricket for three years for taking part in the first 'rebel' tour of South Africa in 1982.

Honours Amiss was selected as one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1975.

Amiss was awarded an MBE in 1988; in 2007 he received a Doctor of the university from the University of Birmingham.

Records Dennis Amiss is the first player in ODI cricket to have scored a century on both his debut and in his last match, the only other being Desmond Haynes. On 7 June 1975 at Lord's in the first match of the Prudential World Cup (which was also the very first Cricket World Cup to have been held) Amiss smashed 137 runs in just 147 balls against India powered by 18 boundaries. His innings provided enough leverage for England to post a very imposing and improbable target of 335 for India to be chased down within a span of 60 overs. It was also the first time that a team would score 300 or more runs in an ODI match. The match also featured the infamous and notorious ODI innings of Sunil Gavaskar who in reply to the nearly unreachable target set by England scored an unbeaten 36 in 174 balls with just one boundary to adorn his innings.

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Amiss has shown gratitude to the Indian trio of Bishen Bedi, Venkatraghavan and Abid Ali who had bowled to him in practice which enabled Amiss to get adjusted to Indian condition, especially spin bowling. (Reference: Chapter 3, 'My Debt to Indians' - "In Search of Runs")

Dennis Amiss has written an Autobiography *In Search of Runs" in association with Michael Carey.