da brdice： Ashwell Prince was upbright and early on Wednesday morning, and he said that the Ashes tussleat the MCG had played its part in inspiring a spirited South Africantail-wag on day two
Dileep Premachandran in Durban27-Dec-2006
Easing the pressure: ‘I went to the beach for a swim and a stretch, and felt good coming out tobat’ © Getty Images
Having finished the opening day on 98 not out, Ashwell Prince was upbright and early on Wednesday morning, and he said that the Ashes tussleat the MCG had played its part in inspiring a spirited South Africantail-wag on day two. Having suffered in the heat on Tuesday afternoon,prompting the decision to go off for bad light, Prince carried on to 121,as South Africa went from 257 for 8 to a much healthier 328 all out.”I was up early this morning, watching the Ashes and seeing two batsmenmake centuries,” he said. “I was hoping that I would get my hundred too. Iwent to the beach for a swim and a stretch, and felt good coming out tobat. It was a big decision for me to take the light offer last evening. Icould have stayed on and got my two runs, but I was not physically in aposition to give my best for the team because I was cramping up. I wantedto come back fresh and try and help us get to 300, which was the target.”He refused to be too harsh on his top-order team-mates, few of whom havebeen able to make any sort of impression on the scoreboard during thisseries. “You have to give credit to India, they have been bowling verywell,” he said. “Especially Sreesanth, who has been getting swing awayfrom the right-handers and bounce too. Zaheer [Khan] too has been bowlingvery well. Our batsmen haven’t got out to irresponsible strokes. Theirbowlers have been putting us under pressure.”On Wednesday, South Africa applied some pressure of their own, but a goodafternoon’s work with the ball was ruined by Graeme Smith dropping asimple chance from Sachin Tendulkar at first slip. Prince, who enjoyed areprieve from Tendulkar when he had made just 41, was philosophical aboutthe whole thing. “Sachin is a great batsman, but these things happen,” hesaid. “We just need to keep our heads up and take the next one.”With Jacques Kallis having missed a few games, Prince has been SouthAfrica’s premier Test batsman this year, and he attributed that largely tothe self-belief gained from his 119 made against the very best. “I started offthe year very well with that hundred at the SCG, and it gave me a lot ofconfidence to have made runs against a quality bowling attack,” he said.”I started to believe then that I could play well at this level.”Having made his Test debut in 2002, he then spent two-and-a-half years onthe outer before earning a recall. Along with the breakthrough knockagainst Australia, Prince reckoned that it was the making of him. “I haveplayed some ten years of first-class cricket, and one of the things I havelearnt is that I needed to improve the conversion-rate,” he said, whenasked about his Test tally of five centuries and four 50s. “I needed to upmy game to make big contributions for the team.”Both at the Wanderers and in Durban, those contributions have beenimmense, in a line-up that has been anything but.