A Prince among men

Ashwell Prince has been named as South Africa's first non-white captain for the Test series in Sri Lanka. Graeme Smith, the regular captain, is out with torn ankle ligaments and Jacques Kallis has tennis elbow, so congratulations to Prince although one Times colleague remarked last night that his name sounds more like a racehorse than a cricketer.

Prince has recovered from a disappointing start to his career - 185 runs in seven matches led to him being dropped in 2002 - and he has scored 406 and 498 runs in his next seven-Test installments, but Shaun Pollock has been unfortunate in being overlooked. The Richie Cunningham lookalike celebrates his 33rd birthday this weekend and remains one of the best off-stump bowlers in the world, even though his pace has dropped a little. He captained South Africa to 14 victories in his 26 Tests in charge, before he carried the blame for a poor home World Cup in 2003 and surrendered the captaincy to Smith. He was also one of the few cricketers to see his personal averages improve with responsibility - as captain he averaged almost 42 with the bat and 21 with the ball. A potentially great South African captain has, I feel, not been given the best chance to show off his skills.