Nathan Price

By Lyall Gardner

Accountants are a conservative lot. They tend to be cautious, moderate and leave little to chance in pursuing their vocation. Just the way we like them when dealing with our financial obligations and transactions. Nathan Price is an accountant. And while he possesses all those qualities in his professional life, they count for little with a cricket bat in his hand, as he has a reputation of being one of the most aggressive and attacking batsmen Randwick Petersham has produced in its 20 years history.

In eight seasons wearing the baggy green and gold, the right-hand dasher hit a massive 96 sixes in accumulating more than 5,000 1st Grade runs.  In 2015-16, he belted 35 balls out of the park in rattling up 1,074 runs and the following summer, topped that by smacking 36 over the fence in scoring 952. His aggressive flair was such, that in a Twenty20 match against Sydney at Coogee Oval, he brought up a superb 101 in just 54 minutes off 51 balls with three fours and a record-shattering nine sixes! When he was on his game, parked cars were a dangerous commodity.

Nathan Alan Price was born at Waratah, Newcastle, on 5 June 1987. After playing junior cricket locally, his talent was recognised early by Wallsend selectors and he made his 1st Grade debut in the Newcastle competition when aged just 16. His success quickly led to representative honours, playing for Newcastle and NSW Country. At age 22 and in an effort to further develop his career, Price decided to play in the Sydney Grade Cricket competition and in 2009-10, stepped out for Randwick Petersham. 

It was an inspired start for the all-rounder as he top-scored against University of NSW with a neat 50, including what turned out to be a signature six, before bowling the last man with his ninth ball and earning himself Player-of-the-Match honours. The promise he showed that summer was confirmed the following season with 573 runs, including five half-centuries, while he took 23 wickets with his medium-pace swingers. He showed his versatility by batting as high as no.1 and as low as no. 6. Nathan’s early season performances caught the eye of State selectors and he won a place in the NSW Second XI team. His outstanding season was such that the team made the 1st Grade Grand Final, while he won the club’s Player of the Season Award by a huge 131 points. He went on to win that award three times.

In the six seasons which followed, Nathan Price was one of the leading players in the Randwick Petersham team and also in the 1st Grade competition. He passed the 500 runs-in-a-season milestone five times, while in 2015-16, he sailed past that mark, churning out a massive 1,074 at an average of 59.66. Only Usman Khawaja with 1,134 in 2007-08, had scored more in a season for the club.

Nathan scored nine centuries in his time with the Randy Petes, the first of which came when he smashed 151* against Parramatta at Old Kings in 2011-12. He came to the wicket batting no. 7 with the score a precarious 5-54. When skipper Scott Coyte, declared, the total had reached 9-337. In his 321 minute stay at the crease hitting 18 fours, Price and no. 9, Adam Semple, hit a club and 1st Grade record eighth wicket partnership of 182. Nathan enjoyed the Parramatta attack as he followed up with a second ton against them, making 101* off just 115 balls at Coogee, the following summer.

Price’s best score of 162 came in 2015-16 against Sutherland, while that season he also belted tons playing Manly (148*) and Hawkesbury (123*). But his most dynamic century was the 101 he made in the Twenty20 match against Sydney at Coogee Oval. And he almost added another three figure score to his impressive tally that summer when he was caught behind for 99, playing Campbelltown-Camden. Between rounds 5 and 11, his five innings produced 466 runs at the almost unbelievable average of 155.33.

The 2016-17 season was Nathan’s last with Randwick Petersham and was an unusual one. Up until Christmas, he was not his fluent self in making 458 runs in 16 innings with a couple of ducks. But the real Nathan Price stood up for the remaining seven innings over a period of 49 days in which he scored a remarkable 494, with three centuries, to give him a total of 952 for the season. He hit a timely 112* against Manly, scored 140 against Mosman which was laced with 12 fours and nine sixes, and on the final day of the season, belted 128 playing Easts at Waverley Oval off just 108 balls with seven fours and six sixes. That innings took him past the magic 5,000 1st Grade runs milestone to finish the summer with a record of 5,116. His 36 sixes that season was one more than the summer before, collectively giving him 71 of his career tally of 96.

While Price was part of two losing Belvidere Cup Grand Finals in his second and third seasons, he had the distinction of leading a Randwick Petersham 1st Grade team to a premiership victory. That occasion was the Grand Final of the 2011-12 Limited Overs Competition when the side defeated Fairfield-Liverpool at Coogee Oval. The victory came just six weeks after the club had annexed its first premiership when it won the Twenty20 Cup. Nathan Price was an integral part of that victory, hitting 21 off seven balls to enable the side to post a match-winning score of 5-181 from its 20 overs.

Nathan’s bowling and fielding greatly complemented his batting, making him one of Randwick Petersham’s most illustrious all-round cricketers. A change bowler who bowled with good rhythm and pace, he moved the ball disconcertingly at times, often breaking troublesome partnerships. His best performance was against Northern District at Mark Taylor Oval in 2012-13 when he snared 5-25 off 12 probing overs. His best seasons were his first with 24 scalps, his second in 2010-11 when he ended with 23 and 2015-16, when he took 20. His career tally with the club was 108 wickets at 31.55.

Price was a real dynamo in the field, taking out the club award on two occasions. A natural athlete and at home in the slips or the outfield, he made difficult chances look easy.  He also possessed a powerful throwing arm which was never better demonstrated than in 2009-10 against Bankstown, when he completed a direct hit from the boundary to effect a run-out which turned the game. In 2013-14 he held 13 catches, snared 16 the following summer while in his final season in 2016-17, he took 13. In all, he held 83 catches, a 1st Grade record which was still in place at the end of 2020-21. He was also credited with 13 run-outs.

 

In 2011-12, Price represented the State in the annual indigenous Imparja Cup tournament in Alice Springs. The following season he was selected in the Australian Indigenous Development Squad which toured India and was named the Lord Taverners Indigenous Cricketer of the Year. In 2015-16, Nathan had the honour of captaining the NSW Indigenous team in the inaugural National Indigenous Cricket Championships. And with his mammoth Sydney Grade Cricket tally of 1,074 runs that summer, the Sydney Cricket Association declared him to be the highest season run-scorer by an indigenous player in the history of the 1st Grade competition.

Apart from a handful of NSW Second XI games, Nathan Price played representative cricket for the ACT and the NSW under 23s team. He also scored a dashing 51 for Randwick Petersham at Coogee Oval against the Ireland World Cup team in the lead-up to the 2015 World Cup. The real gap in his career is that he did not get to play first-class cricket for NSW, something he was clearly capable of doing and doing it well.

At the end of 2016-17, Nathan decided to concentrate on his accounting practice and re-joined Wallsend CC where he was immediately appointed captain-coach. He did however, return to Randwick Petersham for a couple of Twenty20 matches the following season as he said goodbye to Coogee Oval—a self-declared favourite cricket venue.

In his eight seasons with Randwick Petersham, Nathan Price played 162 1st Grade matches, 26 of which were Twenty20 games. He batted 163 times for a total of 5,123 runs at the impressive average of 37.12. Of those runs, 576 came from the 96 sixes he hit–or in accounting terms, with which Nathan would be most familiar–11.24 %.