Ashwell Prince quits South African selection panel post

Ashwell Prince has announced his resignation as national selector

Former South African batsman Ashwell Prince has resigned from his job as a national selector as he wants to shift his focus towards full-time coaching. He had recently coached the South Africa' A' team on their tour of Australia and a potential conflict of interest was one of the major reasons for his decision to quit the selection panel. "I was working on the SA A tour (to Australia last month) as a coach," Prince said.

This news has come as a blow to the national selection panel of South Africa, as Prince was the most experienced cricketer in the panel, which also includes convener Linda Zondi, Hussein Manack, and Errol Stewart. Prince’s career lasted over a decade as he featured in 66 Tests, 52 One Day Internationals (ODIs) and a one-off Twenty20 International for South Africa.

Ashwell Prince was also involved in a few controversies throughout his career. During a County Championship match at Old Trafford a few years ago, Andrew Gale had racially abused Ashwell Prince who was part of the Lancashire team back then. 

Prince was also quite disturbed regarding the fact that his profile on certain websites say that he had been selected because of the “colour” quota. He expresses his desire on how he wishes that would be changed, as it was not the truth. 

Prince spoke about how he wants to shift towards coaching completely.

"I do want to venture into coaching and... there's a conflict of interest with me being a selector and working quite closely with the players. It's probably not fair to the players that I work with some of them and understand their weaknesses and then take that into a selection meeting.

"On the back of that I thought the best thing to do was to put my energies into where I thought I could make a bigger difference," Prince added.

Prince has been linked to a coaching role with the Cape Cobras team which is headed by former player Paul Adams. "(Cobras head coach Paul Adams) has approached me but I'm still weighing up my options," he said. 

Ashwell Prince’s resignation has not been officially announced by Cricket South Africa (CSA) and his replacement is yet to be named.