At the age of 29, he became the first non-white man to captain the South African cricket team when he stood in for the injured Graeme Smith in two Tests.

[4] Ashwell Prince made his first-class debut on 27 October 1995, playing for Eastern Province B against Griqualand West B in the UCB Bowl.

[6] Opening the batting with Philip Amm, Prince was dismissed leg before wicket by fast bowler Roger Telemachus without scoring in each innings.

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.

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 (the highest of any South African batter in Test cricket).

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 an 8 for 593 declared at Cape Town Prince made an unbeaten 108 to help his side escape with a draw.

With Graeme Smith injured, who usually led the team, and Jacques Kallis unavailable, Prince was named as South Africa's captain for their two-Test tour of Sri Lanka in July 2006.

[11][12] In the ODI 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.

He finished as the highest run scorer for the series and his form continued against Pakistan, 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.

"[14]Prince started well in South Africa's tour of England in July 2008 with a score of 101 in his first innings at Lord's Cricket Ground.

Back home, he scored a face saving 162 not out in the second Test against Bangladesh at Centurion, sharing in a South African record 6th wicket partnership of 271 with Mark Boucher.

[14] According to Prince, who in 2008 scored 900 runs at an average of 64.28 from 13 Tests including four centuries,[15] he had been promised that once he recovered from his injury he would be back in the side.

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 Jacques Kallis to the role so that Prince could concentrate on his unfamiliar task of opening the batting.

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.

He opened with Graeme Smith throughout the four-match series,[24] and managed just 97 runs from 7 innings,[25] prompting ESPNcricinfo's Firdose Moonda to describe his performance as "technically inept".

[30][31] Prince finished the season with 1,008 runs from 15 first-class matches at an average of 43.82 including two centuries;[32] Lancashire, however, were relegated to the second division of the Championship.