He was a member of the successful Essex sides of the 1980s and early 1990s, alongside cricketers such as Graham Gooch, Mark Waugh, Nasser Hussain, John Lever and Neil Foster, which in that period won the County Championship six times.

In 1982, while captain of the university, he was selected for England[3] Pringle went on to play 30 Tests, the last of which was in 1992, scoring 695 runs and taking 70 wickets.

Pringle played in the first three-match series of the summer, bowling adequately but having his batting exposed by the Indian spin attack, particularly Maninder Singh.

He did however make his only Test half-century (an innings of 63) in the first match of this series at Lord's, adding 147 in a partnership with Graham Gooch.

Pringle again bowled adequately in the first two Tests (Ian Botham being out for the season after his back operation) but, batting at number six, was exposed against the firepower of the West Indies pace attack.

[9] He took three more at the Oval in the fifth Test, and briefly captained the team from the evening of the third day after Graham Gooch sustained a serious finger injury attempting to take a catch at first slip from Desmond Haynes.

[11] For the following winter tour to the West Indies David Capel was named as all rounder, and Chris Lewis, initially called into the squad as a replacement for Ricardo Ellcock, thereafter became England's new all-rounder in Test matches, although Pringle occasionally continued to turn out in one-day internationals.

Opening the bowling in every game, he produced tidy figures in every match, particularly in the World Cup Final in which England were beaten by Pakistan.

Headingley was the ground where he took more of his Test wickets than any other,[18] and again, Pringle was instrumental in England's win versus Pakistan,[19] and the selectors persisted with him for the Oval.

On a very true, fast, bouncy surface at the Oval, Pringle looked highly playable, and his final bow on a Test match field saw him having his off stump flattened by Wasim Akram.

His always popular warm-up routine before coming on to bowl[20] involved him lying on his back and apparently wrestling with an invisible octopus.

He once damaged his back when his chair collapsed, forcing him to withdraw from a Test match, although the story usually (but wrongly) told is that he sustained the injury whilst writing a letter.

[3] He picked a track, (The Soft Boys with "I Wanna Destroy You"), for Rough Trade Records' 30th anniversary compilation album.