The Gloucestershire allrounder talks to NICK FRIEND about being an English seamer in the current climate, the debate around conditions and why he considers Ravi Bopara an example for his game to follow
It is one of the quirks of the last two years that Gloucestershire will begin this summer in the LV= Insurance County Championship's top tier as reward for their red-ball cricket in 2019. Simpler times, in every sense of the phrase.
And for that, they have Ryan Higgins to thank: 50 wickets in 14 matches, 958 runs at an average just a smidgeon under 60. Promotion from the second division and a place among the elite for the first time in well over a decade. None of his teammates were more potent with the ball, only Chris Dent – another gun of the domestic game – bettered his output at the crease.
And here's the thing that makes Higgins so interesting: unofficially, it feels as though he sits in an elite – albeit unusual – bracket. He is both one of the best county cricketers in the country, no question, and simultaneously ceilinged beneath the realistic possibility of international honours.
At least, that is the perception. When England lose abroad as they did this winter, county cricket takes a kicking. And while the enduring potency of Darren Stevens has been proposed as the precedent for all that is deemed to be wrong with the world, the wider scapegoating has only been thinly veiled: bowlers – namely, nagging seamers of little genuine pace – are taking too many wickets, doing so in a manner that's debilitating to English batters. That argument forgets there was a race to 1,000 runs before the end of May, and it also disrespects the craft of those like Higgins, who do this year upon year, having honed a difficult skillset over time.
"I have a two-sided view," he says, with a foot in each camp as a genuine allrounder who has always considered himself a batter first and foremost but has also never taken fewer than 48 wickets in a full red-ball campaign.
"Well, the pitches probably aren't good enough. But at the same time, it's not county cricket's fault that the people who were selected were selected. That's not anyone's fault in county cricket, in my opinion. There are people selecting those teams who are taking those teams out there, and at the end of the day it's their job to get that right.
"But at the same time, I understand that the pitches aren't that great. From a selfish perspective, I'd love them to make the wickets better. Please, make them flatter. Please, make them better. Because, potentially, you could still do well on those with the ball. And I certainly know that I could do better on them with the bat."
Higgins has been one of themost successful bowlers in the country since joining Gloucestershire (Alex Davidson/Getty Images)
County cricket could do worse than to ask its county cricketers these questions, because there are several like Higgins who are intelligent and candid enough to talk through the nuances at play here. He caveats his comments above with a recognition that they don't apply across the board and laughs at the fact that 33 of the top 50 wicket-takers in the country averaged beneath 25 last year. A decade ago, just 18 snuck under that figure.
"Realistically, people are asking batters to average 50, but there are so many bowlers averaging under 25. It's not right, is it?" he says. "There's something going on there.
"It should be harder than that, right? I sometimes feel that. I shouldn't be in the game in every single game I play. Some games you're not, but the good bowlers will come through."
This isn't meant as a dig at individuals but rather an analysis – with his batting head screwed on – of the state of play, and he offers a nod to Chris Rushworth and others of his ilk, who have made a career of pinning back the stumps of high-class county cricketers.
Higgins points to Sam Cook, the Essex seamer who was a member of the England Lions squad that toured Australia over the winter as a prime example. Likewise, James Anderson and Stuart Broad will begin the summer in the County Championship – "if they play a year of county cricket, they're probably going to take 60 to 70 wickets" – and yet neither will be touching 90mph. Granted, they are two of the best that the game has ever seen, but their impending success – not to mention 1,177 Test wickets combined – is proof that pace need not be everything.
As Higgins puts it: "I suppose what I'm saying is that all the young, quick guys who are supposedly so much better than Cookie, well I'm not seeing them produce the same results."
So, what about the Kookaburra ball? Its prospective implementation has been one topic under discussion, though some who have used it in drier climes have wondered whether the lacquer would survive the damp April mornings.
"I would absolutely love it," he says. "Genuinely, I've said this to so many people. Everyone's like: 'No, you wouldn't – it would take your bowling out of the game.' I'm like: 'Imagine batting against the Kookaburra.' From a selfish point of view, I'm an allrounder.
"This is the game: you want to be challenged; you want to be learning that stuff. I think it would help going away if we bowled with a Kookaburra for half the year. But not just bowling with the Kookaburra ball in April – for me, get the Kookaburra ball in July for a couple of games."
Higgins knows that his chance of breaking into the conversation for higher honours is likelier to come through his batting (Alex Davidson/Getty Images)
For one, it might help batters in their quest for a consistent stance and trigger. Debate around the off-stump guard has become a major talking point. Higgins has been batting there, experiencing its strengths and weaknesses first-hand. "I am starting to understand why you can't bat on off-stump," he admits.
"I think when you're batting really well, batting on off-stump is really easy. It takes out your off-side dismissals – well, it does for me – and it means you can score more because guys bowl straight in county cricket. You'll never hear a bowler in county cricket go: 'I'm bowling channel.'"
As for the other side of the coin, when you're playing less well and feeling less confident on low-bouncing pitches, you become more susceptible to missing the same straight balls that you might normally score off.
Understanding that double-edged sword from a batting perspective has helped his bowling: "I will literally bowl half a stump outside off-stump. That's my thing. That is in the game. If someone's batting on leg-stump, I generally go the other way. I hang a few out there and then try to target them. So, I'll get them coming across their stumps. It's different for everyone. But if it's nipping around, then I'm trying to hit off-stump every ball. Obviously, if the wicket is a bit flatter, then you have to try to plan to get people out."
All this adds up to a conversation about Higgins' own future ambitions, with a sense that his bowling style is unlikely to earn him higher honours on its own, even if he reckons he's put on a yard over the last three or four years. So, his aim is for renewed focus to fall on his batting. If a ceiling has been put on his status in the game in the last couple of years, "I think it's because I'm not doing enough with the bat". Indeed, he hasn't made a first-class hundred since hitting four in 2019.
But he namechecks Ravi Bopara as his precedent – "an unbelievable player", whose bowling was secondary in his all-round game despite taking more than 250 first-class wickets. Similarly, no one spoke about Paul Collingwood's medium-pacers once he was averaging 40 in Test cricket.
"And that is my next challenge," says Higgins. "I want to become more of a batting allrounder, not necessarily in the way that the results show up, but in terms of taking more responsibility with the bat. Sometimes I let it slide because of what I'm doing with the ball. But I can definitely do more to prove that there is a way for me to play at that next level.
"It's not easy: guys like Sam Curran and Ben Stokes, that's sort of like who I'm competing with. So, maybe I need to try and change what I am.
"For me, playing for England is clearly not going to happen by taking 50 wickets. Because it's not. And I understand that. Potentially, if you have two or three seasons where you score 1,000 runs and take 50 wickets, then if no one looks at you, fair enough. You can't do much more than that.
"I just need to keep on plugging away with it. There are always ways; I'm always planning in my head how to get to the next level. But there is no easy level. Some would say to me: 'Don't give up what you're doing.'"
Gloucestershire are back in Division One after more than a decade away (Harry Trump/Getty Images)
An ideal world sees Higgins slotting in at No.5 for Gloucestershire, a couple of spots ahead of his current home, where he considered by aficionados across the circuit as "great to have at six or seven". Whether a shift up the order is feasible, he will know soon enough, with a new head coach to impress in Dale Benkenstein and a squad packed full of seam options.
"I'm happy to have been a bowling allrounder if I don't do well enough with the bat, but my aim is to be a good batsman."
He is conscious of sounding ungrateful in expressing this dilemma, and he is not alone in facing these quandaries. The county game – made up of century-old institutions with dedicated fanbases and their own rich histories – is far more than a feeder to the national setup, but it is also the principal shop window for players to display themselves.
So, balancing personal ambitions with those of the team – in Higgins' case, a club with which he has forged an extremely close bond in the last four years – is a delicate matter.
"What I've found really difficult this last winter is trying to express to other people what I'm trying to do," he explains, "and not come off as being selfish, basically. Potentially opening the bowling, bowling a lot and then sliding down the order isn't doing me any favours. But to be fair, it's probably not doing Gloucestershire any harm. It's the massive pay-off."
He has spent the off-season at home, looking after his young son in the afternoons after practice: life-changing for a relatively new father, but also a return to normality after the previous winter's restrictions on cricket.
He has noticed a change in the way that training take place: fewer team sessions, more intense one-on-one work. "It's a lot more about what you need to do." Higgins' nature demands a sense of tangible competition though, so he has continued to seek that out off-schedule.
"It might work, it might not," he laughs. "The proof will be in the pudding, we'll see."
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