Ashwell Prince

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Ashwell Prince
South Africa
Personal information
Batting style	Left hand bat
Bowling style	Slow left arm orthodox
Career statistics
	Tests	ODIs
Matches	40	52
Runs scored	2337	1018
Batting average	41.00	35.10
100s/50s	7/7	0/3
Top score	139*	89*
Balls bowled	96	12
Wickets	1	-
Bowling average	47.00	-
5 wickets in innings	0	-
10 wickets in match	0	n/a
Best bowling	1/2	-
Catches/stumpings	22/-	26/-
As of October 7, 2007 Source: Cricinfo

Ashwell Gavin Prince (born 28 May 1977 in Port Elizabeth, Cape Province) 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 player's don't sport it without a '+' or zero in front of it.

[edit] International career

Prince moved from Eastern Province to Western Province in the mid 90's under the instruction of Duncan Fletcher who saw potential in him. 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 50's in the series his side struggled and lost 2-0. The first Test saw Mahela Jayawardene score 374 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 World Cup in the Caribbean.

[edit] Test Centuries

An innings-by-innings breakdown of Prince's Test match batting career, showing runs scored (red bars) and the average of the last ten innings (blue line).

[edit] Records

• South African 5th wicket record, 267 with Jacques Kallis vs West Indies in Antigua 2004/05

[edit] Man of the Match Awards

[edit] ODIs

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

[edit] Tests

• 2-5 January 2008, vs West Indies at Newlands, Capetown - 98, 12*

[edit] References

• Player Profile: Ashwell Prince from Cricinfo
• Ashwell Prince Career Averages

v • d • e South Africa squad - 2007 Cricket World Cup 1 Bosman • 2 Boucher • 3 De Villiers • 4 Gibbs • 5 Hall • 6 Kallis • 7 Kemp • 8 Langeveldt • 9 Nel • 10 Ntini • 11 Peterson • 12 Pollock • 13 Prince • 14 Smith (c) • 15 Telemachus • Coach: Arthur