MORECAMBE were locked in a top-of-the-table clash with Barrow yesterday afternoon, but at least half an eye was kept on the progress of one of their own at Headingley. For two seasons as a young man, Ashwell Prince was the professional at the Northern League club and it is a tribute to the allure of club cricket that he still keeps in touch nearly seven years after he forsook the northwest for wider horizons.

Indeed, last Saturday evening, Prince chose to celebrate his first century against England, and a coveted place on the honours board at Lord’s, in the company of two of his former teammates at Morecambe. One of them, Graham Lee, was best man at the South African’s wedding a couple of years ago. Clearly, be it his home town of Port Elizabeth or his adopted home in Morecambe, the 31-year-old left-hander is not one to forget his roots.

“He was one of the best professionals we’ve had at the club over the past 20 years and the quickest thing in the field I’ve ever seen,” said Peter Stephens, who opened the bowling in the same side and is now the club secretary. “He was a more flamboyant player back then, but he took his cricket very seriously. He gave 110 per cent every match, did some coaching, mixed well. He was just a smashing lad. I’d like to say we’d taught him all he knew. We taught him a bit of Lancastrian perhaps.”

Stephens remembers one particular innings, the Northern League Cup final against Chorley, who had an Australian opening bowler. Prince, then just 23, insisted on opening the batting, made an unbeaten 80 and won the match. England are starting to understand how Chorley felt.

In his unfussy, pugnacious way, Prince has quietly reduced the England attack, even one boosted by the return of Andrew Flintoff, to impotence. England would have studied endless videos of Prince, yet translating their plans into a coherent line of attack on the field has proved beyond them. Nothing has disturbed Prince’s Zen-like concentration or persuaded him to play a game foreign to his nature. If there was a touch of extravagance in his cricket at Morecambe and in his early days under the stern eye of Duncan Fletcher at Western Province, the instinct has long since been curbed.

Though built like Sanath Jayasuriya, his strokeplay is more Allan Border, punchy rather than fluent. He knows his game and trusts it implicitly. Two sixes off Monty Panesar, lofted straight, were executed with the neatest of footwork and the minimum of fuss. Otherwise, he accumulated his runs in the left-hander’s usual areas, through midwicket and square cover. Anything over-pitched was punched past mid-off or whipped through wide mid-on. Remarkably, his nine centuries have been scored against seven different Test-playing nations; only Bangladesh have escaped.

In contrast to Lord’s, where his century was greeted with a proper ovation, the push for a single that brought up his 100 yesterday afternoon prompted polite applause. The Western Terrace were too busy baiting the stewards to notice; the rest of the ground had sunk into a torpor as Prince, in partnership with AB de Villiers, slowly and surely took South Africa away from England’s meagre first-innings total.

At Lord’s his first-innings century proved to be a match-saver. Here it could well be a match-winner, but the method was just as solid, the control as total. Only once, in that torrid session against Flintoff and James Anderson on Friday evening, did Prince enjoy a stroke of luck, gaining the benefit of the doubt from Billy Bowden over an lbw decision, but he has earned his reprieve and, like all good players, profited from it.

Flintoff, alone of the England bowlers, induced a hint of fallibility , his vain plea for an lbw just before tea summarising the growing frustration of the England team. Flintoff stood halfway down the pitch, hands on his knees aghast as Bowden once again, though rightly this time, turned down the appeal. The next ball, fast and full, was driven straight back past him, perhaps the pick of the 11 fours in Prince’s century. Flintoff trudged off to tea wondering whether his 18 months of rehabilitation had been worth it.

In the clubhouse at Morecambe last night, there was nothing unpatriotic about their toast to Ashwell Prince. After all, they taught him how to play.