Ken Higgs

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Ken Higgs England (Eng)

Batting style	Left-handed batsman (LHB)
Bowling type	Right arm fast medium (RFM); right arm medium (RM)
	Tests	First-class
Matches	15	511
Runs scored	185	3,648
Batting average	11.56	11.29
100s/50s	0/1	0/3
Top score	63	98
Balls bowled	4,112	89,431
Wickets	71	1,536
Bowling average	20.74	23.61
5 wickets in innings	2	50
10 wickets in match	0	5
Best bowling	6/91	7/19
Catches/stumpings	4/0	311/0
Test debut: August 26, 1965 Last Test: June 11, 1968 Source: [1]

Ken(neth) Higgs (born January 14, 1937, Kidsgrove, Staffordshire, England) was an English fast-medium bowler who was most successful as the opening partner to the incomparable Brian Statham with Lancashire in the 1960s. However, Higgs had a long career after Statham disappeared from the scene, playing for two years in the Lancashire League and later becoming the first-choice opening bowler for Leicestershire, having two recalls at age forty-five in 1982 and, amazingly, at forty-nine (remarkable in an era of limited-overs cricket) in 1986.

1 Early Career with Lancashire
2 A Second Career with Leicestershire
3 Coaching Career
4 External links

[edit] Early Career with Lancashire

In his junior days concentrating on soccer with Port Vale, Higgs did not take seriously to cricket until his late teens, when after impressing observers in club cricket when called on as an emergency he progressed so well during his military service that, despite still having an interest in soccer, he was called on to play for Staffordshire in the Minor Counties Championship. With 46 wickets for 13.13 each, Jack Ikin, a Staffordshire native who was retiring from Lancashire cricket at the end of 1957, recommended Higgs to Lancashire and he began playing for them in 1958.

Higgs caused instant notice with a superb performance against Hampshire in his first County Championship match, taking 7 for 36 and boiwling Hampshire out for 50. His average of 21.41 was modest in so bowler-friendly a summer, and in 1959, by which time he was established as partner to the wonderful Statham, Higgs took 113 wickets but was expensive and often strayed down the leg side. However, in 1960 he corrected this fault and bowled very straight and with good bounce: as a result taking his best-ever aggregate of 132 wickets for 19.42 each. The following four years were gravely disappointing: Higgs' bowling appeared to have lost all its sting and he was handicapped by slow pitches at Old Trafford. However, in 1965 Higgs came back to his form of 1960: taking 102 wickets in County Championship matches and again forming a formidable partnership with Statham. His best performance was 7 for 19 against Leicestershire, but his skill was rewarded when he was selected for the last Test at The Oval and took an excellent 8 for 143 against a formidable South African batting lineup.

Although Higgs did nothing in Australia on the 1965/1966 tour, the following year against the West Indies he established himself as England's first-choice opening bowler with 25 wickets for under 26 runs each in teams that were consistently struggling until the last Test at The Oval. This match, however, was memorable because Higgs, only a tail-end left-hand batsman, made 63, then his highest first-class score and helped England make an astonishing recovery from 7 for 166 to 529 all out. His bowling in the Tests showed he was more willing to attack the stumps than the purely negative short-of-a-length seamers who were becoming (and are still) a curse on cricket.

This was confirmed in 1967, when in three Tests against Pakistan Higgs was the outstanding bowler, taking, after injury kept him out of two Tests against India, seventeen wickets for 14.64 each and being named a Cricketer Of The Year by Wisden. Although Higgs was disappointing in the West Indies in 1967/1968 and lost his place against Australia after one Test in 1968, he was deadly on the many damp pitches of an appalling summer. However, in 1969, with the strain resulting from increasing one-day cricket and better pitches reducing his effectiveness, Higgs resigned from Lancashire.

[edit] A Second Career with Leicestershire

After two years in the Lancashire League, Leicestershire called Higgs out of retirement because of Graham McKenzie's expected unavailability. Though McKenzie actually played with Leicestershire until 1975, Higgs gained a regular place and bowled well, though in generally short spells, right up to the end of the 1970s, when in 1979 he was the fifth-highest Englishman in the bowling averages at the age of forty-two. In one-day cricket, Higgs played a crucial role in Leicestershire's 1972 and 1975 successes in the Benson And Hedges Cup, taking 42 wickets in both 1975 and 1977. He succeeded Ray Illingworth as County Captain for the 1979 season.

After 1979, Higgs seldom played in first-class cricket, and he retired from one-day cricket after 1982. In 1986, at the amazing age of forty-nine, however, Higgs amazingly took 5 for 22 against Yorkshire but naturally could not play regular cricket at that age.