Derek Pringle

Derek Raymond Pringle (born 18 September 1958) is an English former Test and One Day International cricketer for England, and is now a cricket journalist.

Pringle was born in Nairobi, Kenya.

His father Donald Pringle, who had moved there to work as a landscaper, played cricket for Kenya and represented East Africa at the 1975 Cricket World Cup; he died in a car accident a few months later, days after his son's 17th birthday.

Pringle was educated at St. Mary's School (Nairobi), Felsted School and Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge.

He played for Essex between 1978 and 1993.

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.

As an undergraduate, Pringle played for Cambridge University.

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

He also played in 44 One-Day Internationals between 1982 and 1993.

Picked for the first time in 1982, he played several Test matches that summer with Ian Botham in the same side but averaged just 11 with the bat and 40 with the ball.

The selectors felt that faster bowling was more likely to trouble the 1982 tourists (India and Pakistan) than spin.

Pringle toured Australia in 1982–83 but failed to hold his place in 1983.

Pringle was recalled to the England team for the start of 1984, but was powerless to prevent a series of Test defeats by the all-conquering touring West Indies cricket team.

He did however take his first Test five-wicket haul in the first Test match at Birmingham, and could claim to be the only English player to be man of the match in a victory over the West Indies that summer, in the second one-day international at Nottingham.

Phase 2 – England's all-rounder

By the summer of 1986, Botham had been banned for three months for smoking cannabis.

Pringle was therefore elevated to fulfil Botham's role.

1986 was probably one of the worst years for English Test cricket.

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.

With Botham returning for the last Test of the year at the Oval, Pringle was dropped and did not make the 1986–87 Australian tour.

He did not return to the side until the following winter's tour to India and Pakistan for the 1987 World Cup, as Botham had decided not to tour.

Pringle's style of bowling proved to be unsuccessful on dead Asian pitches; he went for 83 runs against West Indies in Gujranwala.

Although he played the next two games, against Pakistan and Sri Lanka, he was then dropped for the rest of the tournament.

By the turn of the year he had lost his place to another aspiring all-rounder, David Capel from Northampton, who played in the Bicentenary Test in Sydney as well as the Test series in New Zealand.

Again recalled for the home series against West Indies in 1988, Pringle took immediate action by taking five wickets in the Texaco Trophy series and making a crucial 39 in the second game at Headingley, which proved to be the difference between the two teams.

Again Pringle was man of the match.

Arguably that game was his highest point for England.

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.

David Capel replaced him for Manchester, but a poor performance from Capel saw Pringle recalled again for Headingley where he took five wickets (his best Test figures, 5/95).

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.

England went on to lose the game.

The "in-out" nature of Pringle's selection continued again in 1989.

Botham and Pringle played together in the Texaco Trophy, but Botham sustained a facial injury facing Glamorgan bowler Steve Barwick.

On a very flat pitch at Headingley, Pringle was one of four bowlers put to the sword by the Australian batsmen.

He was dropped until the final Test of the series at the Oval, where he took four wickets in the Australian first innings and was England's most successful bowler.

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.

He appeared in two World Cups and was a member of England's 1992 World Cup Final team.

Pringle's career can probably be best summed up in phases.

Phase 1 – Early days in Botham's shadow