FULL NAME: Raymond William Price

BORN: Harare, 12 June 1976

MAJOR TEAMS: Mashonaland Country Districts (1995/96), Mashonaland. Present club side: Old Hararians.

KNOWN AS: Raymond/Ray Price

BATTING STYLE: Right Hand Bat

BOWLING STYLE: Slow Left Arm

OCCUPATION: Refrigeration and air conditioning

FIRST-CLASS DEBUT: Mashonaland Country Districts v Mashonaland, at Harare South Country Club, 8 December 1995

TEST DEBUT: Zimbabwe v Sri Lanka, at Harare Sports Club, 4 December 1999

ODI DEBUT: Still awaited

BIOGRAPHY (December 1999)

Raymond Price is perhaps one of the most unlikely Test cricketers. He is the son of Tim Price and nephew of Nick, the world-famous golfer, so he comes from a sporting family. But a serious medical condition in his infancy, which badly affected his co-ordination among other things, and the lack of selection for any representative team during his school career made his eventual selection as a Test cricketer a remarkable and unexpected achievement.

Ray was born more than two months prematurely and so was a very sickly baby. He caught meningitis, a disease that kills four out of five babies, and survived, but it affects the ears and the balance. He actually came out of it very deaf, but nobody discovered this until his nursery school teacher, shouting at him from behind, realised this was the case. Tests with the doctor proved that he was deaf. He had an operation at the age of six which restored 75 per cent of his hearing within three months.

The operation did seriously affect his balance, though; he had to learn to walk again and he found himself quite unable to catch anything. His mother spent hours throwing bean bags to him and it took him three weeks to learn to catch them as his co-ordination had been so badly affected. Naturally he was far behind others of his age and it took him several years to catch up.

Ray's first memory of cricket is of playing with his friends in the garden at the age of about six, which was when he first learned to love the game, although not yet how to play it. His father Tim was a former national schools captain, but his whole family was based more around golf. He remembers at the age of about ten or eleven playing at the Royal Harare Golf Club where Tim was the professional when a friend invited him to the nets at the adjacent Harare Sports Club ground. "Ever since then I just got so hooked I loved it," he says.

Ray has always been quite good at golf, but he says the pressure there is totally different from cricket. He went on tour once with his father and experienced at first hand the type of pressure associated with golf, and didn't enjoy it. Cricket as a team sport he loved. His family love of sport, although it was not so much for cricket, he found an inspiration. Although he has become used to people telling him that he has a good blood line in sport, his selection for the Third Test match against Sri Lanka was the first time he had been selected for any national team at any age. Despite being overlooked at the various age-group levels, he says, "I just loved the game and kept on playing. I was one of those who always pitched at nets and always tried to work hard and asked a lot of questions . . . and that's how eventually I got here."

His uncle Nick had been a left-arm bowler, although a seamer, and he taught Ray a little about bowling in the garden, and whenever he returned from tour they used to play family cricket in the garden. Nick bats and bowls left-handed, although playing golf right-handed, while Tim bats right and bowls off-spin. Ray saw the dedication of his father and uncle to golf and the amount of practice necessary to bring the best out of themselves, as well as the love they had for golf, and this proved an influence on his cricket. They also taught him first and foremost to be a gentleman in anything else. The Royal Harare Golf Club also had very strict rules on dress code and conduct, so he grew up with the discipline of sport.

Ray attended Borrowdale Junior School, a fairly small school in Harare, but he developed so late that he only started being selected for his age-group's first team in his last two years there. He won the school's cricketer of the year award in his final year, and thinks this helped to spur him on. Before this he had been one of those players who does little more than field for the afternoon, without bowling and batting low down so that the only time he got an innings was when the team was losing. He finished as a leading bowler and also batting at number three, although his highest score was only about 25. He thinks he used to try to bowl too quickly at that age, bowling seam rather than spin. His award he realises now was not a great achievement as the standard there was not particularly high, but he sees it as a stepping-stone in his life. He was not good enough then even to be sent for trials for the Harare team in the inter-provincial primary schools cricket week.

He moved on to Watershed High School as a boarder, bowling left-arm googlies once he had switched from seam, but to start with had to bat at eleven and was only given a bowl occasionally. He built his way up, though, and remembers taking a hat-trick

against Prince Edward School - his father's old school - at Under-13 level. This was again rather a small school, so he soon became an automatic choice for the first team at his age level, and from Form Three onwards played for the school first team. He found a couple of friends who also really enjoyed the game and they practised together frequently, and he found the coaches very positive and willing to help him overcome his weaknesses.

Mr Steve Geach, the under-13 coach, was a major influence; he was a strict coach, but he laid it on the line very clearly, emphasising that at cricket one had to work very hard to achieve anything. Later on Mr Peter Whalley, the first-team coach, played a major part in Ray's development, and it was he who spotted his spin-bowling talent at Form Three level and invited him over to the senior team nets. Ray took part in the inter-schools festival at Prince Edward as part of the Watershed team, and everything progressed from there.

He actually played more as a batsman than a bowler at that stage, thrust into opening the innings and facing bowlers three or more years older than he. Thrown in at the deep end, he feels it was good for him as he had to learn to cope and raise his standard very quickly. It was not until his lower sixth-form year that he began to make many runs or take many wickets, though. He scored 129 not out against an English touring team as his highest score at school, and in his final year averaged 112 with the bat. He played for the Mashonaland Country Districts team in the national high schools cricket week in his final two years, but without being selected for the national team.

He took some useful bowling figures, but had not learned to turn the ball much then. That came when he played against a touring Western Province team and was impressed with the sharp spin achieved by Claude Henderson. One day after play he approached Henderson and asked him how he managed to turn the ball so much, and he showed Ray how to hold the seam properly and land it properly. This Ray feels was the turning point in his bowling career.

Due to his Watershed education and the fact that his father lived on a farm in Norton, west of Harare, Ray was qualified for Mashonaland Country Districts, and actually played for Norton in the Districts Winter League from the age of 14. He played against several national players and was invited to practices, which eventually led to his first-class debut in 1995/96, when he scored a total of 20 runs but failed to take a wicket.

Ray also played for the Harare Sports Club third team from the age of 14; a Mr Graham Elliott helped a lot with cricket at Watershed and he invited the coach Mr Ken Nichol to bring his team into Harare to practise at the Sports Club nets on Tuesday evenings.

After leaving Watershed with his A-levels, Ray went on to an apprenticeship in refrigeration and air conditioning. He finds it rather a hard way of life which he does not really enjoy very much, and is hoping to earn a professional cricket contract in the near future. This has been a dream of his since the age of about ten, conceived through watching players like Dave Houghton, Malcolm Jarvis and others performing on television. He does, however, pay tribute to his boss, Mr George Rogers of OK Zimbabwe, a cricket lover who has been sympathetic and given him time off whenever he needed it to practise or play.

He moved to Old Hararians Sports Club, and came under the influence of Dave Houghton and Trevor Penney, who taught him a great deal and invited him to the B nets, for the Zimbabwe Board XI team, and things progressed from there as Ray became a regular member of that side. He found he was on a steeper learning curve now, as opposing batsmen tended to be better and they picked the bad ball much more quickly. He had to learn to control his spin and bowl three or four different deliveries, including two different arm balls, to good line and length. Anything wayward, he learned, went for four.

He considered himself fortunate that former Test off-spinner John Traicos took him under his wing and taught him a lot. Traicos was just the right person at the right time for Ray, who realised he was on the verge of international cricket and found someone who bowled the way he wanted to bowl. He admired Traicos' ability to pitch the ball in the right area at the right time, with a great rhythm and perfect line and length. Ray tells of how his father recently bumped into Traicos in Australia and asked him, "Have you any words of wisdom for Raymond?" Traicos answered, "I have three: line, length and pace." That summed it up.

The 1999/2000 season found Zimbabwe in a state almost of crisis in their spin bowling department. Paul Strang, already out of form, was injured for several months, while Adam Huckle suddenly decided to give up the game. Andrew Whittall, a regular bowler, was not effective enough at Test level to hold down a regular place, and the selectors, desperate to win the Third Test against Sri Lanka, decided to choose Ray as an attacking move.

Ray had already had experience against touring teams, most recently for the President's XI against the Australians in Bulawayo. He had some rough treatment at times, but it was notable that he did not wilt under pressure. Still, it was a surprise to most people to see Ray chosen so soon for Test cricket. The weather did not give him his best chance to display his skills, but he held up his end usefully with the bat and began with two maiden overs in a tight bowling spell that kept the reins on the Sri Lankan batsmen.

When asked for the reason for his remarkable progress, Ray's answer was, "I believe that God helps you out with a lot of things, and when it's your day it's your day, and when it's your time it's your time. I think if you work really hard at the things you love, you'll get there. It's just a matter of believing in yourself, and I was lucky enough to have parents who believed in me, and especially the coaches."

As a committed Christian, Ray looks back on his early life, with the serious disabilities he suffered, and says, "God has come through for so many things. It just shows that nothing is impossible with God." He had no family background in the faith, but he fell in with a bunch of Christians his own age when he was about twelve or thirteen, at a stage of his life when he was looking for a base in life and a purpose. He was impressed with the lives these friends lived, the way they would listen when he talked to them and spent a lot of time with him. He attended church and "I found that God gave me an inner peace and a quality of life that I never found anywhere else. I found his Word in the Bible to be so true that it became a guideline for my life." He enjoys fellowship with Henry Olonga especially, and also Gavin Rennie, other Christians in the Zimbabwe squad.

He has learned that cricket is very much a psychological game. "The moment you think you're going to lose, you will. That's where I believe that God helps me so much because I'm not really a confident person. I draw my confidence from him rather than from anything else. Whenever I go out to bat, whenever I bowl, I don't believe I should always ask that I should play well, but just that I should be able to concentrate when I'm batting and when I'm bowling. I never wish bad on those people I'm playing against; I just hope that I'll be able to play well and really enjoy it. I think that's the challenge now, to keep on enjoying the game, rather than look towards money or worry about staying in the team. That's what Davy Houghton tries to teach us as well, so we just keep on enjoying the game."

In club cricket Ray opens the batting for Old Hararians with consistency but does not often break through to make higher scores. He did make a century against Harare Sports Club second team when they played in the Vigne Cup first league. In limited-over club cricket where bowlers are restricted to ten overs each he has little chance to take large numbers of wickets but has some good analyses of three or four in an innings at little cost, and this he feels is what attracted the selectors.

Ray still enjoys playing golf as 'a great social game', and plays occasionally with his father and brother, off a ten handicap. He does not wish to take it any further than that; he finds it 'a nice way to get outdoors and get to know people, especially when you've just met them'. He also plays squash and tennis occasionally, but his favourite hobby is fishing.

© ZCU