With fresh two-year contracts under their belts, Gloucestershire’s brothers-in-arms Ollie and Tom Price are looking to build on strong finishes to last season when the 2023 campaign gets under way.
Gloucestershire taken on Glamorgan in their first game of the new season on Thursday with Ollie, 21, and Tom, 23, one of three sets of siblings in the squad, with the Taylors (Jack and Matt) and the Charlesworths (Ben and Luke) also coming off the Oxfordshire conveyor belt in recent years.
“There is healthy banter between us,” says Tom. “Any form of competition - I played him at darts the other day and he beat me so that was a shock result.”
But you can also see the pride the pair have in being able to share their cricketing journey.
“It makes it more special that we are here together,” said Tom. “We have trained together here at Glos since we were 11 or 12 and we were playing club cricket from six or seven so we’ve been here every step of the way.
Ollie added: “We are over the moon to sign until 2025. When we first spoke about it we were both excited to be here in Bristol with this group of players for the next few years.
“It feels like a really exciting time to be at this club, and we’re looking forward to seeing what we can achieve as a group.”
Like so many cricket-mad youngsters, the journey started for seam bowler Tom - “let’s say seam - I am still trying to bowl quick” and off-spinning all-rounder Ollie in the back garden.
“Our dad and grandad are cricket lovers, they never played professionally or anything, but Dad deserves some credit for throwing down a fair few underarms when we were kids and it grew from there,” said Ollie. “We have got a younger brother as well and there were a few competitive games between us all in the back garden
“Club-wise, we started at Abingdon Vale then we went to Great and Little Tew at 13 - better known as the Taylor Oval - and now I play for Chippenham and Tom is at Bedminster.”
Great and Little Tew was where Jack and Matt Taylor came through, but they are older than the Prices and the Charlesworths, Luke and Ben.
“Luke was a little bit younger but he came up with us all,” said Tom. “I have spent a lot of time with Ben, the three of us would get lifts together to come and train down here every week from about 2014.
Ollie added: “I roomed with Ben at the Taunton festival, so we’ve some up through age group cricket since we were about 10. It’s strange how three sets of brothers have all come through into the squad.”
Tom has always been a seamer, going back to those back-garden games, while Ollie’s road to off-spin has been a longer one.
“We’ll say seam. I am trying to bowl quick and I am hoping Marchant de Lange is a good man to have on board when I’m trying to do that,” said Tom. “It’s always been seam, for as long as I can remember. I have never bowled anything else.
“I bowled little dibbly-dobblers until 16 or 17 than put on annually a little more pace each time so I hope I have done that again this winter and got a bit quicker.
“I have always been pace while Ollie has always been spin.” - as he explained. “Anyone who knew me when I was 11 or 12 knew I didn’t bowl very fast when I tried to bowl seam so I am not sure whether it was through passion or that my seam wasn’t the quickest, or if it was the only route I could take.
“I used to bowl leg spin until I was about 10 or 11 but that was unsuccessful so I made the move to offspin at about 12 - but maybe I just wasn’t allowed to bowl seam in the garden - I’m not sure.”
Price junior has also forged a growing reputation as a slip fielder and that has helped his older brother out a few times with wickets, with ‘caught O Price bowled T Price’ set to become a more regular fixture on the county’s scorecards in years to come.
“Have you always fielded in the slips”, Tom asked his brother. "Yes pretty much, I did it at school and it’s always something I have enjoyed doing,” was the reply.
Tom couldn’t help adding a little jibe - “There have been a few caught Price bowled Price, but the ones that don’t get noticed are the bowled Price dropped Price... but to be fair he is pretty reliable in the slips, he has helped me out with a few.”
“Those moments are very special,” said Ollie. “I think it’s something we take for granted but we are very lucky to have a close group of players in general, so you are going out there with your best mates, but to have the privilege of doing that with your brother as well is great.
Tom was named the county’s Young Player of the Year following a fine campaign that saw him take 32 Division One wickets at an average of 20.09 and included an historic eight-wicket-haul against Warwickshire in the Club’s final home Championship match of the season, while Ollie scored almost 400 runs in eight appearances.
He scored two consecutive 50s during Gloucestershire’s rain-affected draw with Somerset in September and followed that performance up two matches later with an impressive 68 against Yorkshire as Gloucestershire secured their second win in two matches at the end of the season.
Tom is hoping to benefit from the absence of David Payne for the opening block of Championship games, while the departure of Ryan Higgins has also left the door open for a new-look new-ball partnership, with new boy de Lange, Matt Taylor and Ajeet Singh Dale also among those in the frame.
“I think we have got a very strong attack, We saw that at the end of last year,” he said. “Payney is a massive miss for the first six weeks but he will be on the side helping us out.
“I hope nothing will change too much and I can carry on the same from last year and start strong as we have big ambitions as a squad as we do every year. Marchant has been here a couple of months and has been great already.
All the senior players have been so helpful and generous with their time and it’s a common thing I have found here at Gloucestershire.
“Even when I was very young, Higgo and Payney were amazing, taking me under their wing and giving advice - I was probably asking them a heap of questions but they were great.”
For Ollie, it is a case of balancing his ever-improving batting, with the slip fielding and offspin.
“I have worked with Tom Smith since I was about 14, he did lots of spin bowling with the Academy and now to be playing along side him, I am still working with him as a coach which is great,” he said.
“He does that role so well, balancing the two, and Zafar Gohar is a world class operator and I love picking his brains and watching him from close quarters. When I was a teenager I would watch someone like Nathan Lyon, an orthodox off spinner who has been world class and that is the sort of standard I would love to reach one day.
“You only have a certain amount of time and energy that you can train and as an all rounder you are trying to balance the two as best you can. I have worked really hard on my batting and I loved the role I was playing at the end of last year batting at 3 and 5 was very enjoyable.
“I want to reach the top in both disciplines but realistically right now with my role in the side it’s probably more batting heavy and that’s something I am very happy with. I’d love to push that as much as I can and if that means the bowling has to slow down then so be it.
“I look at someone like Miles Hammond who started as a spin bowler but now he is up there with the best batters in the club in all formats. We have so many spinning options with GvB (Graeme van Buuren) Jacko (Tack Taylor) Zaf and myself - Hammo’s batting is in such a great place now and his bowling is highly under rated I reckon.”
So what of the future - and not surprisingly, both Prices have ambitions to reach the top and taste the international stage. “Definitely, we speak about it a fair bit,” said Ollie. “The aim is to be a world-class cricketer and the standard of that is being an international player.
“You feel like you have got a long process to get there and there are so many good players around. The margins are fine but you just want to keep pushing but I see that as a big ambition to play international cricket or reach that standard as a world-class player.”
Tom echoes his brother’s words. “International cricket is a goal but the way I look at it, I just want to be the best,” he said. “I don’t want to put a ceiling on anything, I take it game by game and try to do as well I can and in the meantime make myself as good as I can be and see where I get to.”
