Kenneth Higgs

	Ken Higgs delivers the ball during his final season as a player, aged 49 © Getty Images Enlarge
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HIGGS, KENNETH, died on September 7, aged 79. A letter to Old Trafford in 1957 from Staffordshire captain Denis Haynes changed Ken Higgs's life. Higgs was 20, and intent on becoming a footballer, until Haynes suggested Lancashire take a look at the strapping seamer who was jarring bat handles in Minor Counties cricket. The Lancashire coach Stan Worthington returned to Manchester with a firm recommendation: Higgs could be "the next Alec Bedser".

He quickly lived up to expectations. Against Hampshire on his Championship debut in 1958, he took a wicket in his first over, and in the second innings claimed seven for 36. By the end of the season, he had 67 at 22. When Brian Statham was away on Test duty, Higgs became the indefatigable leader of the attack. From 1959, he topped 100 wickets in three successive summers. "He did not have days when he sprayed it around, and he did not bowl long hops. He was just so consistent," said Lancashire captain Bob Barber.

Off a gently curving run-up of no more than 15 strides, Higgs generated cut and swing with a snap of the wrist and an action that harnessed all his strength. He was an imposing figure - the writer Paul Edwards described him as having "an arse that crossed two postcodes" - and operated at around 80mph, slower than Statham but with a similar premium on accuracy. Later, at Leicestershire, he became a more voluble figure, prone to volcanic eruptions and seldom short of a word for batsmen. "He was like a raging bull on the field, but the kindest, gentlest man off it," said his Leicestershire team-mate Jonathan Agnew. "He had a chihuahua, which summed him up really - this massive man with a tiny dog."

His Test statistics suggest he was unlucky not to win more caps. In 15 matches he took 71 wickets at 20, with an economy-rate of 2.14. On debut against South Africa at The Oval in 1965, he took the new ball in the second innings with Statham, in his final Test. Higgs claimed eight in the match, and was selected for the winter's Ashes tour. He played in the First Test at Brisbane, but succumbed to injury and illness, and did not get back into the team until the New Zealand leg of the trip, when he took 17 wickets in the three Tests, including figures of 9-7-5-4 in the second innings at Christchurch. He retained his place at home against West Indies, and was the only England player to appear in all five Tests, taking 24 wickets at 25, including six for 91 at Lord's - "a triumph for industry and wholeheartedness" said The Times. Many of his victims were top-order batsmen: Conrad Hunte and Rohan Kanhai were bagged four times each. At The Oval, Higgs and last man John Snow put on 128. Higgs finally gave a return catch to David Holford when 63, with the pair unaware they were two short of the Test record for the tenth wicket. As they celebrated with pints in the dressing-room, they were asked to pose for photographs on the pavilion balcony. But they were told frothing glasses might give the wrong message, and ordered to replace them with teacups.

As a schoolboy, Higgs had shown greater potential as a footballer, and was signed up by Port Vale as a centre-half. He was selected for an FA youth tour of West Germany, but national service intervened, and in the army he began to play more cricket. His enthusiasm grew and, when his brother's Staffordshire League team were a man short, he was pressed into playing. He soon became a regular. Higgs's performances for Lancashire dipped in the early 1960s. He began straying down the leg side, but his problems had more to do with anxiety about the annual round of contract negotiations and lack of financial security.

He did not drive, and commuted each day from Staffordshire by train and bus. When Lancashire were playing Northamptonshire he was accompanied by fellow Potteries resident David Steele - until Steele failed to walk for an edge, and Higgs pointedly caught a different train home. It was hard to avoid Old Trafford's complex internal politics. Before playing Nottinghamshire at Worksop in 1961, the team were about to leave their hotel when Barber took a call from Worthington at Old Trafford telling him the committee thought Higgs was tired, and demanding he be sent home. Barber refused, and asked why: "Stan said because he had taken fewer wickets than at the same point in the previous season."

Barber agreed to ask Higgs how he felt. "He said he wasn't tired and wondered why I was asking. I said, 'Because the committee think you haven't taken enough wickets this season.' Ken just said, 'Aye, it's because I haven't bowled enough.'" He put his slump behind him in 1965 to pass 100 wickets for the fourth time and earn his Test call-up. He was a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1968, and chosen for the tour of the Caribbean in 1967-68, but was furious when he was ignored for the Tests, as the selectors opted for the greater pace of Snow, David Brown and Jeff Jones. He played only once more for England.

But, when nerveless accuracy was called for, he was still one of the best on the circuit. In 1969, he bowled at the death in two remarkable Championship finishes. Warwickshire needed five runs from the final over with five wickets in hand, but Higgs took two wickets, and kept them to three. And, at Bramall Lane, with Yorkshire requiring one to win off the last over, he bowled a triple-wicket maiden. He left Lancashire at the end of the season, feeling that the newly arrived overseas players were being disproportionately rewarded, and sought more lucrative employment with Rishton in the Lancashire League.

Two years later, he was enticed to Leicestershire, where he was a regular for eight summers. Under Ray Illingworth's canny captaincy he played a leading role in their 1970s successes. When Leicestershire were champions in 1975, he bowled 560 overs and took 50 wickets at 29. He was never less than combative. "He had battles with Javed Miandad," recalled Agnew. "In one game, Javed played him back down the pitch defensively, and Ken stared at him, determined not to be the one to break eye contact. The trouble was, he was still staring at him when he bent down to pick up the ball, and couldn't find it. After it rolled past him, Javed ran a quick single."

Higgs was captain in 1979 but played less often, and became the county coach, dispensing kindly wisdom to emerging seamers such as Agnew, Les Taylor, Gordon Parsons and Phil DeFreitas. In 1986, aged 49, he was summoned for two final Championship matches. Against Yorkshire at Grace Road, bowling off three paces but observing the time-honoured principles of line and length, he took five for 22 off 11 overs. "I don't know what the fuss is about," he told reporters afterwards. "I'm still getting 2,000 wickets a week in the nets."