Ashwell Prince weighs in on the Proteas’ heavy defeat in the 1st Test against New Zealand and why there was a lack of intensity when it comes to the Proteas’ performance.
In the SuperSport show, Wake up and smell the cricket, former Proteas batter, Prince, gave some excellent insight into what a team goes through when visiting a country that has a drastic time difference.
“I’m going to try to offer some sort of defence for the players,” said Prince on Wake up and smell the Cricket.
“When you are travelling to Australia and New Zealand, you are going to the other side of the world.
“Scientifically, they told us, you need one day per hour [of the flight] to acclimatise to a different time zone. So if it’s 11 hours, you need 11 days to acclimatise.
“For Bouchy and the captain to say the intensity and energy were not quite there, I’m thinking to myself, your first 10, 11 days in New Zealand, you’re not sleeping at night. You are awake throughout the night; when you fall asleep, it’s kind of the daytime in New Zealand.
“When the matches are being played, it’s kind of when your body is still in the South African time zone and you’re falling asleep.
“So, in defence of the team, they should only be playing a warm-up match now, and then be getting into the Test match.”
Comparing it with his time as batting coach of Bangladesh when they toured New Zealand recently, Prince shares insight into what it was like for the team to acclimatise before their historic 8-wicket win in January against the hosts.
“We had 10 days of Test cricket [two matches] but we were there for 35 days,” he said. “We had the time to acclimatise beforehand.
“We were all wide awake at night for 10, 11 days, but then we had three days of training and a two-day practice match. And then the Test match [which Bangladesh won].”