Ray Price: Zimbabwe Board XI v Easterns B

All-rounder Ray Price made an unexpected Test debut against Sri Lanka last season but, despite continued progress especially with his left-arm spin, he has yet to be selected again. He took ten wickets against Easterns B in the three-day match at Mutare Sports Club, and talks to John Ward afterwards.

Since that debut, Ray feels that he has `dropped from the scene a bit' as far as international cricket is concerned. Grant Flower and Dirk Viljoen are batting all-rounders who also bowl left-arm spin, while Gavin Rennie has also regained his bowling form in the same style, so this area is well catered for unless you are looking for a real specialist - which the selectors haven't really been doing. Also, since Ray's Test debut, Brian Murphy has unexpectedly returned and Paul Strang has regained fitness, so there are suddenly quite a few more spinners on the scene again, and all turn the ball away from the bat as Ray does. This has restricted Ray's representative cricket to the Board XI for the time being.

Instead he has been concentrating on his job as player-coach to the Midlands Cricket Union in Kwekwe, along with David Mutendera and Doug Marillier. "I've been enjoying it there; we've had a lot of fun," he says. "It's quite a new set-up so we've been trying to develop the whole area, with all the schools around, doing a lot of coaching, and also with the men. They're all very keen, so we practise about three times a week and go on until about nine o'clock at night, with lights. They've set it up very well and worked hard at it, thanks to Ken Connelly and Colin Saunders. They both have jobs as well, but they do a lot for cricket; they spend a lot of their spare time working for cricket."

Last winter Ray toured Sri Lanka with the Zimbabwe A team, showing a reasonable amount of success, finding pitches that were helpful to spin but also batsmen who knew very well how to play spin. Then he took six weeks off, went fishing and tried to relax and get his mind off cricket for a while. Then the current season started, with club matches for Midlands and UCBSA Bowl matches for the Board XI.

Ray feels his form this season is good, with his batting making progress, often opening the innings, but still showing a tendency to get out in the thirties and forties. "I've just got to work on that," he confesses, "and when I'm in there stick around a little longer. My bowling's been good and I've enjoyed it, and I've had a lot of help from the [Board XI] coach Trevor Penney who's been trying to work on a couple of things - basically trying to get closer to the stumps and deliver the ball from straighter."

As a batsman Ray has quickly built himself a not although deserved reputation as a stone-waller, and he played a few dour innings when his team was struggling in Sri Lanka: 21 off 119 balls, 13 off 157 and 21 off 212 in the last two unofficial Tests. This season he has been looking to develop his attacking strokes more. "At the beginning of last season I was struggling a little," he says. "I was playing fine, but then I kept on making twenties and thirties off about 100 balls, so I wouldn't say I play a lot more shots now, but I do try to accelerate a bit faster, especially with the club I'm at, where I have to be the pro at one end and try to get on with it more, and let them try to nudge around and get the singles. I've learned a lot and I'm still learning more. I'm just trying to establish myself as a middle-order batter or an opener, and also to bowl spin."

For the Board XI, though, he feels, "I haven't preformed to my potential as a batter in the B sides. But I've come up with a couple of scores, a couple of forties and thirties. But I get disappointed when I get out then, because you should really carry on through and bat for yourself. But my bowling's been very good. I got eight in an innings against Natal - five, then three in the second innings - and I've just got my first `ten-for' now. So everything's coming along very nicely, and just getting closer to the stumps has helped me more than anything else. I also try to vary my pace a bit more."

Ray arrived in Mutare on Wednesday evening, the night before the match was due to start. Mutare does not have a commercial airport, so the players all arrived by car and stayed at the local Holiday Inn. "They batted first and ended up with about 260 all out, and we made about 280, so we had a lead of 25. Then they were all out for about 83, so we only had 60-odd to chase and we finished it in the evening in two days. The umpires gave us an extra half-hour to try and finish it off, so yesterday we had a break day, which was nice, because the wicket wasn't yet ready [for the one-day match] and there were a whole lot of sponsors who wanted to be out today, so we couldn't play the one-day game yesterday." The teams went to the famous local Leopard Rock Hotel for the day.

"All in all, it's been a good year for us," says Ray. "The B side has played very well, and we're getting better and better at three-day cricket, I think - it's just taken us a while, especially when we play against sides like New Zealand and India when they arrive. It's nice to have warm-up games against them, which usually stand us in good stead to play the B games. But we should still be doing better in the three-day competition. At the moment we've won two games, lost one and drawn one, so we should be quite high in the table. But our one-day form is as good as it's ever been."

The feeling has been growing locally that it is high time the Board XI was promoted to the full SuperSport series in South Africa, especially as this year there are two unbalanced divisions there, one with six teams and the other with five. If the Board XI were admitted there would be six in each.

"That's our main aim, to try to get into that league," says Ray. "But while saying that, the South African Union have to pay a lot more for us, and they're trying to develop their cricket there. But hopefully one day we'll be able to get back into that competition, because Mashonaland was in there once [in the one-day competition]. Then obviously our B team cricketers will get a lot more experience playing against really good players. The more of the longer version we play, the better we'll get at it, and I think the South African pitches are quite flat and it would make it a lot more difficult for our bowlers. We've played on a couple of really bad wickets in our last couple of games because it's really hard to get a result in three days, so even if they start by extending this into four-day cricket that will be a good start, and then hopefully we'll build our way up into the SuperSport league, which would be great. It will be better for our players, and people from England will also be able to see more of our players and see if they want them over there, which will be better marketing for us. That's our ultimate goal, the SuperSport series.

"The Academy has helped a lot, because it means we have 19 or 20 youngsters coming into the system, which would be good for our cricket next year. And hopefully it will keep on bringing kids into the game. The main problem we have at the moment is in taking kids from school into our leagues, which is what we're trying to do, trying to keep them interested and get them to realize they can actually make a living out of cricket."

Returning to Mutare, Ray finds the local facilities are reasonable, but understands that the club has enjoyed no funding and the members have had to work by themselves. "But the ZCU have just given them half a million dollars, so hopefully they're going to be able to do quite a bit with it. I believe they're going to rip up the whole wicket and relay it, and build new changing rooms and all sorts of things. It's a very scenic ground; it's beautiful to play here. The wicket hasn't played very well; there has been very uneven bounce, and it has mainly kept low. So they have a bit to improve, but I'm sure it will be a wonderful venue once they've managed to sort everything out here. And the support has always been good here; whenever we've come there have always been a lot of people watching. The organization is very good and none of them get paid to do it. So if you've got that kind of spirit, hopefully once you've got money introduced it will be even better.

"We need to get a few more grounds, like Mutare and Kwekwe and others, up to world standard, and if our pitches get better then our cricketers get better as well. We learn how to bat properly and bowl properly."

Asked which of the Easterns players impressed him, Ray answered, "The opening batter [Johan Uys] who we've been lucky to get out quite cheaply; their number three Aldo van den Berg, and their captain, the left-hander [Anthony Pollock]. They've done pretty well. Uys played very well in the one-day game. I can't really say much about their bowlers because I haven't batted for long enough!

"The guys are working really hard at the moment; their goal is to impress the selectors and put pressure on the guys in the main side, so they will make a few changes. We're all just trying to work on our cricket and get more and more professional."