Ryan Higgins Turned Down Zimbabwe Approach

[therealbigdeal]

https://www.thecricketer.com/Topics/cou ... 3507097878

[Marshmallow]

Paywall..

[Pat_Bee]

The headline tells you what you need to know though

[Pat_Bee]

Higgins doesn’t fancy it because they’d pay him less than Mrs Higgins would deem acceptable and in zigs

[eugene]

I'm not sure he is a significant loss. Most of these guys come over from county cricket and don't exactly set things alight internationally. Jarvis came back worse than when he left.

[therealbigdeal]

https://www.thecricketer.com/Topics/cou ... 3507097878

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Ryan Higgins' hopes of representing Zimbabwe have – for the moment – come to nothing, after talks between the Middlesex allrounder and the national governing body.

Higgins, who was born in Harare and spent the first 13 years of his life in the country, played for Southern Rocks for two months over the winter as an overseas player in the Logan Cup and Pro50 Championship, while mulling over the prospect of officially declaring for Zimbabwe, where much of his family still lives.

The trip was effectively a recce for Higgins, who was keen to commit his international future and was all but set in his mind on taking the plunge, having previously been approached by the country of his birth during the 2023 winter.

But conversations with officials in the last week of his two-month stint revealed significant differences in their expectations that mean, while Higgins won't shut the door on those ambitions, they have been shelved for now.

"Realistically, I'm not 100 per cent sure if both parties quite understood where we stood before I went," Higgins tells The Cricketer.

"For me, I wasn't just expecting to go and play, but I was expecting a bit more of a conversation. I think personally that it's one of those where, at the moment, we're probably on slightly different pages for how that looks, playing for Zimbabwe."

While Higgins had committed part of his winter to playing for Rocks during the county off-season, Zimbabwe Cricket wanted him to play the entire domestic season – running from late October through to mid-March – before being considered for selection. They also made clear that his record at county level, where Higgins has consistently been one of the circuit's leading players, would not be taken into account. He made 156 runs in six Logan Cup innings and took six wickets.



As it stands, that sacrifice – both physical (he was wary of his workloads as an all-format allrounder, all year round) and financial (the fiscal security for a senior county cricketer being far greater than for a domestic player in Zimbabwe) – doesn't add up for Higgins. His situation doesn't quite correspond to those of Nick Welch and Ben Curran, formerly of Leicestershire and Northamptonshire, respectively, who have both debuted for Zimbabwe since committing to the country, having been released by their first-class counties.

"Realistically, committing to a long period of time playing cricket over there and actually proving yourself is good," says Higgins, who insisted that he understood Zimbabwe Cricket's reasoning for their firm stance, wanting prospective players to physically display their commitment before being handed their cap, so as to avoid picking players from outside the domestic system who'd then quickly make themselves unavailable.

"It is a really valid point, and this is the thing that I stressed," he explains. "If you are going to do this, you have to do it for the right reasons – not for a one-stop shop, where you play a couple of games and then stop. But also, everyone has their different situations, so it is the risk that they would have to take – a risk for any team signing someone. But I do respect that stance on that because it's a strong stance and fair enough."

For that reason, Higgins, who turned 30 in January, was keen to pursue this major shift at this juncture, with enough cricket left in him to forge a prolonged, worthwhile international career. He maintains that the positive to emerge from the discussions was "that it's not a closed door" but simultaneously insists that revisiting this opportunity in the twilight of his career in his mid-to-late thirties "would be doing it for the wrong reasons".

"That would be doing it to tick a box and get a cap," he says, ruling himself out of that approach. "I hope they don't let people do that, because that wouldn't be fair on the guys who've worked hard to get their caps for Zimbabwe in the first place. That is one of the reasons that I wanted to get involved now, so I wasn't getting to the back end of my career before doing it."



In the end, talks never went far enough to reach the point of determining what it might mean for his Middlesex career. Higgins is grateful to his county for even allowing the trip, which they knew was effectively a fact-finding mission with his international future in mind. But declaring for Zimbabwe – and being selected by them – would have rendered Higgins an overseas player, changed the terms of his contract and transformed his relationship with county cricket around the Future Tours' Programme and any international commitments.

His domestic record – 12 first-class centuries, averaging 37.48, and 281 wickets at 25.47 apiece – would make him almost an ideal overseas player for any county when available and, when The Cricketer first reported Higgins' keenness to declare, the response from Zimbabwe supporters was broadly favourable.

It would be easy to present Higgins as an opportunist, motivated by Zimbabwe's upcoming Test in England and a co-hosted World Cup on the horizon, but that perception would also be both cynical and simplistic, while also failing to understand the extent to which he'd be uprooting his life, in all likelihood, for a pay cut. "I am in a strange situation, born in Zimbabwe and living a lot of my life in Zimbabwe," he reflects. "So, it is one of those where it is more complicated than just wanting to play Test cricket."

The vast majority of his family still live in his homeland, and the decision to even explore the potential for a huge change – with a wife and son living in London – was a thoughtful process in itself, with the carrot of Test cricket dangled before him and the chance to realign himself with his heritage.

"Some people might look at it differently and only want to play for England," adds Higgins. "But you are in the position that you're in, and you explore opportunities to play as high a level as you can, challenging yourself to keep making yourself better."

While current expectations remain in place, appearing for Zimbabwe seems unlikely. Should the stars align, though, with the flexibility required to suit both parties, he won't rule out the possibility.


"I was very motivated to do it for my cricket side of things," he explains. "But actually, looking at it now and having the chats with them, they are probably not where I was hoping they would be. I genuinely thought that they would be much keener to get me involved than they were. But I suppose that is the way that cricket is sometimes: what you are trying to strive for sometimes isn't aligned with someone else's viewpoint.

"No cricket decision is ever one-sided. Maybe county cricket is what I'm meant to be doing for the minute, committing and trying to play really well here. If they look at that and think that is good enough, then fine. But if they view it in a different light and aren't going to look at county cricket, then I suppose I can't do much about that."

Higgins' quandary speaks, too, to the different realities for professionals in one of the wealthiest cricket nations and one of those less resourced. His two months at Southern Rocks, one of five teams on the domestic ladder, highlighted those "eye-opening" contrasts, and it speaks volumes for cricket's broken economic system that this should become a club-versus-country dilemma.

"From such a privileged position as a county cricketer, that was probably one of the better things about going over there – realising how privileged and lucky we are to play in the environment that we do," he says. "We moan often about the schedule – and it is a tough schedule – and it might be the buses we travel on, but realistically those guys are fighting for their careers day-in-day-out on contracts. Seeing other professional cricketers in that situation at times was quite difficult. I tried to judge how I would be in that situation."

To that end, Higgins will only wish Zimbabwe the very best for the one-off Test at Trent Bridge. He calls it "great for the game" that this fixture is even happening, 22 years after its last staging, when James Anderson made his Test bow against the same opposition. "It's going to be really fun to watch," he says.

"It's a bit David and Goliath, with the resources that England have by comparison. To see the guys who were great to me while I was over there, hopefully they'll do really well. Hopefully, they put their best foot forward and show the world that they might be a small place but are a really good cricketing nation. Hopefully, that is how it comes across. It is something that might not happen again for quite a long time, so it is a cool thing."

For now, though, it's not Higgins' calling.

[TapsC2]

Its a tough call. I honestly understand both sides. Whether we like it or not, Gary Ballance really messed up a lot of things. Im sure he had his reasons but given what was at stake it was extremely selfish and will have long term consequences. It will be extremely difficult for them to trust anyone coming from that system, no matter how much value they will add

[zimfan1]

Yeah, basically ZC are once bitten twice shy which is probably how I would feel.

[ZIMDOGGY]

I'm not sure he is a significant loss. Most of these guys come over from county cricket and don't exactly set things alight internationally. Jarvis came back worse than when he left.

I *kind of* agree.
This forum makes out like County is some supreme league but it’s weak AF for the most part, by way of too many teams.
Besides Stokes, there’s not a lot of pace bowling all rounders as evidenced by if they were, they’d be part of the national setup or at least in and out of it, something Higgins has never been.

That being said, the top guys in county are obviously good and everyone here says Higgins county stats are good so he probably is no mug and I’m not contradicting my previous point that he is obviously decent and he has no competition in Zimbabwe. It’s him or Newman. Through those lens, he’s a catch.

[Pat_Bee]

County is romanticised like some mystical thing, same propaganda as those dukes balls

It’s rubbish except for a few rich teams. Higgins’ stats are okay without being impressive. If he was as awesome as everyone says he is, he’d at least have played some lions games surely.

If 42 year old Jimmy Anderson and 45 (or whatever) year old Darren stevens can tear it up, it’s not that hard

KP got like 355* in a day once in the old champo in front of one man and his dog.