MATTHEW POTTER: The Gloucestershire allrounder discusses his international prospects, future franchise league opportunities and not resting on his laurels
It’s safe to say 2020 hasn’t been the year many of us planned.
Star Gloucestershire all rounder Ryan Higgins is no exception, with the county promoted to the first division for the first time since 2004 and a nomination for the 2019 PCA player of the year, as well as a contract for the Welsh Fire in The Hundred, Higgins was all set for a stellar domestic season. He reflects upon lockdown: “I’ve been keeping busy but for most cricketers at this time it’s been really frustrating not being able to train, it’s been pretty difficult. But the lights at the end of the tunnel.”
Higgins was publicly perplexed by the ability of recreational cricketers to return to approved socially distanced training whilst professionals were barred from doing so, writing on Twitter on 29th May: “Struggling to understand why we can’t train as a recreational cricketer whilst in furlough. Not training for the employee, not training for money. Why can’t we train for the love of the sport? Baffles me."
When we speak about this, he strikes a balanced tone. “Unless you’re really in a position to be making these decisions I suppose you don’t really know, so, that’s been tough, very frustrating, but my view over the whole lockdown slowly changed to be that I’m not in the position to make those decisions so you have to get on with it.”
Since moving to England from Zimbabwe aged 13, Higgins has always thrived in difficult situations. Having played for the Under-13 national side - “It seems ridiculous now to have an Under-13 Zimbabwe side, but we used to go tour and play provinces in South Africa which was cool” - he admits to struggling during his first winter in his new home. “I went to loads of trials which had been arranged for me but I didn’t get in anywhere, I’d never played indoors and it was a bit tough, I didn’t really know what I could do, my confidence was a bit low”.
Struggling to understand why we can’t train as a recreational cricketer whilst in furlough. Not training for the employee, not training for money. Why can’t we train only for the love of the sport? Baffles me.
— Ryan Higgins (@ryanhiggins21) May 29, 2020
Higgins, as has become a theme during his career, quickly found his feet. “Once the summer started I started playing actual games which was a lot easier as I could actually perform, your performance actually counts as opposed to what you look like or what a coach thinks of you if that makes sense.” He soon rose through the local ranks before being picked up by Middlesex, signing his first professional contract the same summer that he made his England Under-19 debut. “In the summer series and I had a really good series and things went really well, my batting was really starting to take off and improve.”
England clearly thought so too, and he went to the 2014 Under-19 World Cup in the United Arab Emirates. “That was absolutely amazing. I had a decent tournament, I started off probably not as well as I would have liked. But as the tournament went on I got into the swing of things and we had some really good players in that team." They really did, Ben Duckett has played for England, Ed Barnard has starred for Worcestershire, Jake Clarke has scored buckets of runs, Jonny Tattersall is a Yorkshire regular. “We managed to get to the semi-finals and we unfortunately just couldn’t get to the final. But it was a really good time”
That summer, Higgins made his T20 and List A debuts for Middlesex, getting to play at Lord's in front of big crowds he fondly recalls as “a really special time for me.” However, Higgins remained grounded, aiming for more, specifically a first-class debut.
“I played a lot of short-format cricket in my first year and absolutely loved playing for Middlesex in the T20s and one-day stuff, but I think now looking back at it I still had a lot to learn and a lot of challenges to overcome. In terms of my cricket I probably didn’t improve as much as I needed to in the first couple of years of my professional career”
The winter of 2014, Higgins went to Australia to play grade cricket, and found the going extremely tough.“ I really struggled actually, I found the different culture, different environment difficult and I actually really struggled in terms of performance coming back from that, I found my general set up had changed quite a lot.”
AFTER AN UNPRECEDENTED BREAK, THE RETURN OF THE SEAMERS
He has no regrets though and credits it with growing mentally as a player and person. “I don’t regret Australia, it was a really good place to go play cricket, I met some lovely people but it was tougher than I thought it would be and it probably affected my next year of performance. I was more used to spending about six months a year playing whereas that year I had the Under-19 World cup, played the summer for Middlesex, went to Australia and then played another summer so it was two years on the bounce.
I suppose it was my first taste of understanding what it was like to play cricket all year round. And the importance as well to actually take a break when I needed it. During that time I didn’t think I could say to anyone ‘I need a break’ so I just played through it.”
The main goal remained first-class cricket, but the debut still didn’t come. Was he worried about being labeled a white-ball specialist?
“To be honest I always thought I’d play first-class cricket right out of school and I’m not really sure how I got the T20 and one-day thing. I don’t think Middlesex viewed me as a T20 or one day specialist. We had a really good four-day side at the time and I presume that I was just never quite good enough, there were still a couple of all-rounders at the time that were probably a tad better than me. I’d only just started bowling later on so I was still developing that skill.”
He talks about it very eloquently now, but he admits to being frustrated. As I have discovered is common, he reflects upon this time developing in a very different light than he did at the time. “I look back now and think maybe it was the right thing for me, having that time to develop my bowling helped me feel comfortable at that level when I started. I could have started three years before but I might have done terribly.”
“I don’t look at it now and think what a shame I didn’t play, I look back and think it’s worked out how it was probably meant to work out.” This retrospective approach is not lost on him. “It’s quite nice to look back on things in a different light when at the time I was absolutely spewing every week, phoning up coaches asking why I'm not playing, what I needed to do.”
The first-class debut did come in 2017, and he remembers it fondly. “We played against Yorkshire at Lords. Sam Robson in the first innings piled on the runs so we had a really good total on the board. I didn’t get many. I think I only got 12 but I felt really comfortable at that level by that stage. I had played a lot of professional cricket even though I hadn’t played any four-day games. I then bowled really well and it was a bit of a surprise that I could bowl well at that level, it was a really good experience beating Yorkshire at Lord's, I think we won by an innings!”
Despite this, Higgins opted to move on at the end of the 2017 season. This was a huge blow for Middlesex but his mind was made up. “I think looking back at it I probably would have played a lot of first class cricket the next year, but I just didn’t think that I would. I started building this idea in my head that Middlesex probably wasn’t the place for my career. And then I didn’t get picked in a game and I felt like I was never going to get an opportunity, I couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel.”
“Looking back on it I’m glad I don’t think that way now . I really struggled with the thought that people had only started believing in me once I had performed at that level. Which I don’t think is actually the case, I think that at the time there were just players that were better than me in front of me.”
Before long, he settled on the move to Gloucestershire. “I thought I’d explore a few options, and I was really happy that I spoke to Daws (Richard Dawson, Gloucestershire head coach), I’d worked with him in the under-19s and felt he really backed me from a really young age so it wasn’t like he was just calling to just try and sign someone.”
“He backed me and he knew what I was capable of, which was really nice. I knew a few guys at Glos and a lot of the coaches, like Ian Harvey who I had worked with before, Julian Wood who was working with T20 stuff at the time so I’d worked with a lot of the coaches and it just made sense to me.”
Ryan Higgins has taken to red-ball cricket like a duck to water
To say the move has been a resounding success would be a massive understatement. “It’s been an amazing couple of years that have happened. I’m really happy to have been offered the opportunity and then to take the opportunity and give everything that I could back to the club and back to Gloucestershire because I feel like they’ve given me so much and for giving me that opportunity.
"It’s been an amazing two years, it's been a bit of a whirlwind but it’s all fallen in to place, it’s now just trying to continue that hard work and try to make sure I’m pushing myself further than I have so far.”
Having been drafted in The Hundred and played in the Abu Dhabi T20 League in 2018, I wonder if Higgins would like to be further involved in franchise cricket. “Every cricketer wants to do a bit more franchise stuff (laughs), you absolutely want to do that. With The Hundred I was really excited that I got picked up in that, but I don’t know what’s happening next year at the moment, what’s going to happen in terms of the draft and if they’re going to roll on contracts or not.
"In terms of franchise cricket, I think everyone wants to play a lot of franchise cricket, It’s what you want to do, you play against the best players, there are so many benefits to playing franchise cricket I think it's one of those things to keep aspiring to."
As ever, he is grounded in his thoughts, and looks for self-improvement before getting carried away. “I think I need to keep working and perform more. I think my T20 results have been decent but they haven’t been standout so for me to really put my name in the hat at any higher level or T20 franchise cricket. I need to perform at a level that is higher than what I’m performing at the moment because there’s so many guys out there that want to do it.
You can’t just expect a franchise contract, you have to earn it just like anything else and I think that is one of the big things at the moment, You aren’t going to perform in four-day cricket or one-day cricket and get a T20 franchise deal. You have to be performing at levels that international cricketers are performing at before you can get those franchise contracts. I would love to play but I need to be better to get there.”
Of the four PCA player of the year nominees last year, two are full England internationals (Ben Stokes, Dom Sibley) and the other isn’t eligible (Simon Harmer) so, was he disappointed to miss out on the preliminary 55 players England selected to return to training?
“Of course I’ve thought about it like a lot of cricketers have," he admitted. "I’d have loved to be in the 55-man squad but thinking about it I thought ‘You know what?’ I’m not a genuine batter or a genuine bowler so I need to do really really well in both. Although my bowling doesn’t let me down in terms of results the pace that I bowl at probably doesn’t catch anyone’s eye. That’s something I need to look at just to improve a touch to get people believing I could bowl at the next level.
Ryan Higgins knows he must improve in both suits to catch the eye of the England selectors
"There would have been loads of people disappointed not to be in that and as much as I’m disappointed I was never really expecting it, I wasn’t on the Lions in the winter, you need to be in the system to be in squads like that, there’s a lot of great cricketers that didn’t get in. I understand I need to become a better cricketer to get there.”
Surely if he continues the way he has then a full international berth cannot be far away, and after Gloucestershire’s promotion he is hoping he will catch the eye of the selectors. “I think there is a gap between who gets noticed (between Division One and Division Two), I don’t disagree with that because it is probably a higher level than Division Two but speaking to a few guys on the circuit that have been up to Division One they don’t believe there is as big a gap as they thought there might be.
"Some guys are just really good cricketers and are ready to play for England straight away. Hopefully for me in Division One I need to try and push myself to get up the order at Gloucestershire, to try and push myself to do what I do at number six and seven higher up the order, whether I get that opportunity or not is a different story but I’m hoping I do. I’ll do whatever the team needs so I won’t be putting any pressure on anyone because that’s not the way I do it. And then with the bowling I just need to work on getting quicker, I can’t get any taller but maybe I can get a bit quicker.”
Still only 25 and with a long career ahead of him, retirement isn’t in the picture for the foreseeable future. However, Higgins has used his time in lockdown to start considering what the future may hold after his playing days are over. “It is something that I have started to think about, there’s lots of things I've considered doing but actually getting on and doing them is a different story. I’m studying a business and sports management degree at the moment which has been really good.”
Clearly interested in the inner workings of the sport, Higgins admits to surprise at the lack of clarity and openness of the ECB. “During the lockdown looking at things from the outside in as a player not having much of a say in what’s happening within cricket. It’s been an interesting time, I think as players we are out of the loop of any of the big decisions which I think is pretty strange considering we are the people that eventually have to go take the park in any given situation.
“So I’ve been speaking to my personal development guy from the PCA, Martin Cropper, and I’ve been thinking what’s the best thing I can do? I could maybe after my career I could go into cricket more on the business side of things, but hopefully I’ve got a good 10 years before then! I’ll be looking into that and trying to put myself in a position to help players out, have a greater understanding of what actually goes on behind the scenes and how decisions are made and why there are such different conclusions for different counties. That’s something I'm looking to explore over the next few years.”
What is for sure, is that in the intervening years between now and making these decisions, this is far from the last time we will hear from Ryan Higgins.
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