Ashwell Prince

Ashwell Prince

Personal information
Full name	Ashwell Gavin Prince
Born	28 May 1977 (1977-05-28) Port Elizabeth, South Africa
Batting style	Left-handed
Bowling style	Right arm off break
Role	Batsman
International information
National side	South Africa
Test debut (cap 283)	22 February 2002 v Australia
Last Test	26 December 2011 v Sri Lanka
ODI debut (cap 72)	9 October 2002 v Bangladesh
Last ODI	25 April 2007 v Australia
Domestic team information
Years	Team
19959/6–1996/97	Eastern Province
1997/98–2003/04	Western Province
2004/05	Western Province Boland
2006/07–2007/08	Cape Cobras
2008	Nottinghamshire
2008/09–present	Warriors
2009–2010	Lancashire
Career statistics
Competition	Test	ODI	FC	LA
Matches	66	52	205	213
Runs scored	3,665	1,018	12,497	4,766
Batting average	41.64	35.10	43.84	31.35
100s/50s	11/11	0/3	31/60	2/24
Top score	162*	89*	254	128
Balls bowled	96	12	276	91
Wickets	1	0	4	0
Bowling average	47.00	–	41.50	–
5 wickets in innings	0	0	0	0
10 wickets in match	0	n/a	0	n/a
Best bowling	1/2	0/3	2/11	0/2
Catches/stumpings	47/–	26/–	140/–	96/–
Source: Cricinfo, 6 January 2012

Ashwell Gavin Prince (born 28 May 1977) is a cricketer who plays Test and One Day International cricket for South Africa. A left-handed middle order batsman, he has a high-batted stance and is strong through the offside. He is noted for his gritty style of batting and also for being an athletic fielder in the covers. At the age of 29, he became the first non-white man to captain the mostly-white South African cricket team.

He has an unusual ODI shirt number which reads '5+0'. This is as a mark of respect to the late Hansie Cronje who wore the number 5 during his career: with Cronje's death his shirt number was retired and South African players do not sport the number 5 without a '+' or zero after it.

Career

Prince moved from Eastern Province to Western Province in the mid 1990s under the instruction of Duncan Fletcher who saw potential in him. Ashwell played two seasons for English cricket team Morecambe Cricket Club in his earlier career. After being named Western Province's player of the year in 2001, Prince came to the attention of the selectors. He made his Test debut in February 2002, against Australia at the Wanderers. His inclusion in the side was partly due to the quota system in South Africa. He however justified his spot in the side by making 49 and top scoring. In the third Test at Durban he narrowly missed out on a half century again but his 48 was influential in his sides victory.

In 2002/03 he struggled in series against Bangladesh and Sri Lanka and was dropped from the team. With good form in domestic cricket he came back into the side in 2004/05 and played two Tests against the Zimbabweans. In the second match he made his maiden Test hundred, finishing unbeaten on 139. This was enough to get him a ticket on the plane over to the West Indies and in the fourth Test at Antigua he made 131 and set a South African 5th wicket record partnership of 267 with Jacques Kallis.

The South Africans travelled to Australia the following summer and then met up again on home soil. Throughout both legs of the series Prince had trouble facing up against Shane Warne, being dismissed by him seven times in the six Test matches. Along with his debut series which was played against Australia Prince had fallen victim to Warne a total of eleven times. Despite this he still managed a couple of good innings. The first came in the third Test at Sydney where he again batted well with Kallis and made 119. Three matches later but this time in South Africa, Prince top scored in South Africa's first innings at the Wanderers and made 93.

During the Australia leg of the series the South Africans are said to have copped racial abuse with Prince being one of the victims. In the 1st Test at the WACA Ground in Perth during the 2005/06 season he alleged that sections of the crowd were calling him kaffir, a racial slur referring to "African slaves".

Later in 2006 New Zealand played an away series in South Africa and after they managed a 8 for 593 declared at Cape Town Prince made an unbeaten 108 to help his side escape with a draw.

With Graeme Smith and Jacques Kallis unavailable, Prince was named as South Africa's captain for their tour of Sri Lanka in July 2006. He became their first ever black captain and despite making two 50s in the series his side struggled and lost 2-0. The first Test saw Mahela Jayawardene (who scored 374) and Kumar Sangakkara (287) share a world record partnership of 624, and the second was lost by just one wicket.

In the One Day series which followed Prince lost the captaincy to Mark Boucher and it was a sign of things to come as he was not included in South Africa's squad for the Champions Trophy. Still in the Test side, he impressed during South Africa's home series against India, making a hundred at Durban after making 97 at Johannesburg. He finished as the highest run scorer for the series and his form continued against the Pakistani highlighted by an innings of 138 at Centurion. This form earned him a recall to the one day side and he was named in South Africa's 15 man squad for the 2007 World Cup in the Caribbean.

South Africa were knocked out in the semi-finals, and Prince scored 107 runs from six innings in nine matches. He has not played an ODI since the 2007 World Cup and has stated that

If I look back at my one-day career my strike rate is probably a bit low [67.77] but then when I was selected in the team I was given a specific role. I would only bat if the team was 60 for 3. If we were 160 for 3, guys like [Justin] Kemp, [Mark] Boucher, or [Shaun] Pollock would bat. My role was to make sure we recovered when we were in trouble and if that's your role you can't strike at 100."

Test specialist

He started well in the South Africa tour of England in July 2008 with a score of 101 in his first innings at Lord's Cricket Ground. He scored 149 in the 2nd test at Headingley Carnegie.

Back home, he scored a face saving 162* in the 2nd test against Bangladesh at Centurion, sharing in a South African record 6th wicket partnership of 271 with Mark Boucher.

Before the first Test of South Africa's tour of Australia in December, Prince suffered a broken thumb. Batsman JP Duminy was selected in his place. According to Prince, who scored 900 runs in 13 Tests including four centuries in 2008 at an average of 64.28, he had been promised that once he recovered from his injury he would be back in the side. Instead South Africa persisted with Duminy, and Prince did not play another Test until the next series. Dropped from the first 12-man squad for the two Tests when Australia toured South Africa in February, Prince returned to the team for the third Test after captain Graeme Smith was injured and opener Neil McKenzie was dropped. Used to batting in the middle order, Prince was asked to open in the absence of South Africa's settled opening pair. On his recall he was also asked to captain the side in place of the injured Smith, however the following day Cricket South Africa appointed Jaques Kallis to the role so that Prince could concentrate on his unfamiliar task of opening the batting. Opening with debutant Imraan Khan, Prince scored 150, his 11th Test century.

In February 2009, Prince signed a contract to play for Lancashire County Cricket Club the English season. He acted as cover for V. V. S. Laxman, the club's other overseas player, who was unavailable at times because he was playing in the Indian Premier League. Prince score his first century for Lancashire at the start of May during a match against Nottinghamshire. The knock cameof 135 not out from 189 balls came on the final day of the four-day match and helped Lancashire from a score of 39/3 to draw the match. From five County Championship matches Prince scored 4979 runs. The following year, Lancashire signed Kumar Sangakkara who was unavailable due to international commitments until May. Due to his performance in 2009, Prince was signed as cover.

After a run of low scores, Prince was dropped from South Africa's Test team at the end of 2011, being replaced by Alviro Petersen for the third Test of South Africa's home series against Sri Lanka.

Test centuries

Ashwell Prince's Test centuries
	Runs	Match	Against	City/Country	Venue	Year
[1]	139*	9	Zimbabwe	Centurion, South Africa	SuperSport Park	2005
[2]	131	12	West Indies	St John's, Antigua	Antigua Recreation Ground	2005
[3]	119	15	Australia	Sydney, Australia	Sydney Cricket Ground	2006
[4]	108*	20	New Zealand	Cape Town, South Africa	Sahara Park Newlands	2006
[5]	121	25	India	Durban, South Africa	Old Wanderers	2006
[6]	138	27	Pakistan	Centurion, South Africa	SuperSport Park	2007
[7]	123*	36	West Indies	Durban, South Africa	Sahara Stadium Kingsmead	2008
[8]	101	42	England	London, England	Lord's Cricket Ground	2008
[9]	149	43	England	Leeds, England	Headingley	2008
[10]	162*	47	Bangladesh	Centurion, South Africa	SuperSport Park	2008
[11]	150	48	Australia	Cape Town, South Africa	Newlands Stadium	2009

An innings-by-innings breakdown of Prince's Test match batting career, current as at 14 January 2012, showing runs scored (blue and orange bars) and his career batting average (red line). An alternative image is available showing a 10 innings moving average.

Records

• South African 5th wicket record, 267 with Jacques Kallis vs West Indies in Antigua 2004/05
• South African 6th wicket record, 271 with Mark Boucher vs Bangladesh at Centurion 2008

Man of the Match Awards

ODIs

• 14 May 2005, vs West Indies at Queen's Park - 89*
• 17 August 2005, vs ACC Asian XI at Supersport Park - 78*

Tests

• 2-5 January 2008, vs West Indies at Newlands, Cape Town - 98, 12*
• 18-21 July 2008, vs England at Headingley Carnegie, Leeds 149*

External links

• Player profile: Ashwell Prince from ESPNcricinfo

Preceded by Graeme Smith

South African Test cricket captain 2005/6–2006/7 deputising for Graeme Smith

Succeeded by Graeme Smith