Back in Black
From NZ Sport Monthly, March 1998

One of the brightest aspects of the current summer has been the return from injury of allrounder Dion Nash. Margot Butcher charts his recovery.

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"Mate, I tell ya, he's an absolute inspiration to everyone in our dressing room."

He's full of aggression and energy and he's just soooo competitive. He desperately wants to win all the time."

"He talks us up. Having him back is just huge for us."

The speaker is Alex Tait in the basement of Hamilton's WestpacTrust Stadium. Hero of the day after a single over gave him four Canterbury wickets, he's talking to a huddle of media in the afterglow of the Northern Nights' 1998 Shell Cup victory.

The team-mate for whom he's sweating praise? Dion Nash.

This is, in fact, Nash's second summer "back" with the Northern Knights after a sabbatical in Otago while he finished his bachelor of Arts degree. But last season, carrying a back injury, he played only the Shell Trophy and then only as a batsman (bar an unwise 15 overs in his first game back).

What Tait means is that it's Nash's first summer back in force the potent, athletic allrounder of old with the silky smooth run up and die-hard attitude.

It was by the proverbial long road. In the winter of 1996, a few months after searing lower-back pain forced him to give up a prized contract with English county Middlesex, Nash had, in fact, come perilously close to quitting cricket all together.

"It was like breaking up a relationship," recalls Nash. "You go through different stages, ups and downs.

"Initially, I thought I would just get over it but, after a few months, I realised the injury was more serious. Then I got a bit 'anti'. I thought maybe I should just flag it, forget playing cricket for New Zealand.

"But, almost as soon as my mind went there, I thought, 'No!'."

The competitive spirit within was evidently intact but his back was not. His L5 disc had prolapsed (been pushed out of alignment) and he had stress fractures.

The ligaments that were supposed to hold the disc in place had been repeatedly torn, and the muscles and nerves around it were literally feeling the pinch.

Some days, it was hard just getting out of bed.

It's testimony to the unnatural force of his bowling action that Nash was injured at all. One of the best all-round athletes in the New Zealand team, at first glance he doesn't look like an injury risk.

He doesn't have either the excessive height that compromises strength in the spinal column (like Australian string bean Bruce Reid) or an overdeveloped upper body in comparison to the hips and legs (like Chris Pringle or Merv Hughes) which so often produces crook ankles and knees.

However, when Nash bowled, his head would fall away to one side, causing an excessive twisting motion and lack of balance that wrenched his back. At the same time, his abdominals weren't strong enough to counter the force since he hadn't trained them enough or in the right way.

He was an accident waiting to happen.

Compounding the situation was the natural desire of a young cricketer to accede to the national selectors' each and every demand, to take every opportunity he could to progress his career.

When he made his new Zealand debut in Zimbabwe in 192 at the age of 21, he had just four first-class appearances for Northern Districts behind him.

The former New Zealand Youth cap was clearly being fast-tracked to the big time. Tours to England, South Africa, India, the 1995 World Cup and the West Indies followed, sandwiched between a heavy diet of domestic and Middlesex competition.

"It hadn't been drilled home enough to me, as a professional, that I had to use what little downtime I had doing rehab work on my muscles and back, rather than just taking the wear and tear day after day.

"The thing is, in cricket, you play so much that you really want to use that downtime just as time out. The last thing you want to do on your day off is hit the gym.

"I was a bit naive. My injury could have been prevented, both by training the (abdominal)muscles which I needed to protect the back area, and by managing the amount of bowling I was doing and my rest periods."

In other words, nobody at New Zealand Cricket or in Middlesex told Nash what to do. If they did, they didn't back it up with adequate support.

Sure, the team has had an expert physiotherapist in Mark Plummer, but "Plums" is often to flat out picking up the pieces of shattered cricket bodies to work on management plans.

It's not his brief. Besides, the damage is usually done by the time the player sees the physio.

This is not a black mark against just New Zealand Cricket. Such circumstances pervade the entire cricket world.

In England, they annually complain of a high turnover of talent in the national side without addressing the intense county schedule and relentless use of players which physically breaks down their best men.

The cost to Nash was 18 months of international cricket, his Middlesex contract and his first chance of financial security within the New Zealand setup. On the threshold of obtaining his first New Zealand Cricket contract in 1996, he failed the requisite fitness test.

He was injured and unemployed. He went to job interviews but as soon as he declared his hopes of playing cricket again, employers went cold. He ended up working in a bar part-time just to keep the mortgage under control.

But now Nash is back. Back in black.

And his back is back too.

Hid game-breaking form in Cricket Max early this season translated into strong performances elsewhere.

In Shell conference play, he scored heavily for the champion Northern side, including a century against Central.

In the Shell Trophy, he scored an enormous century in baking heat at Masterton.

he topped the Knights' batting averages during the Shell Cup and won a recall to the national side, first in Australia (where he bladed the infamous "six" which would surely have seen New Zealand into the Carlton & United series final) and in the Bank of New Zealand series against Zimbabwe and Australia.

"He is the biggest rehabilitation success we have had," says Gilbert Enoka who, as New Zealand Cricket player liaison officer, was in charge of coordinating Nash's comeback programme.

So what's the secret and can we bottle it?

Part one of the story is Nash's chance discovery of a training technique traditionally used in the ballet world for strengthening the back and midsection.

He'd never heard of Pilates (that's three syllables) until a family friend mentioned it to his wheelchair-bound mother. Now, he starts getting paranoid when he's touring round the country and can't get to a Pilates studio.

What is Pilates?

"It's a system of exercise using machines," says Nash. "A lot of them are used lying down, working against the pressure of springs and pulleys.

"In some ways, it's more like tai chi than going to the gym in that it's very controlled, very slow, really focussing on your breathing, and your abdominal and trunk strength as the centre where all movement originates."

Nash began work at Maree Burmester's Body Studio in April and is now training to be an instructor. All Blacks Michael Jones and Robin Brooke have switched on to pilates as have Auckland Warrior Steve Kearney and a number of his team-mates. Australian cricket is on the verge of incorporating it into its official training program.

Part two of the comeback story involves an important change of thinking within New Zealand Cricket circles.

When Nash arrived for duty in Australia, it was with official instructions that would limit the amount of bowling he would do and ensure that he had a game off (against Australia A) so his body could adequately recover.

Coach Steve Rixon looked at the recommendations and said, "Right, that's the way it is.".

This was part of an overall management plan developed for Nash in September by New Zealand Cricket's sport science panel. Simon Doull is another on a managed plan and any New Zealand bowler who pulls into the pits from now on will also be put on one.

The panel includes Christchurch sports physiotherapist Graeme Nuttridge, who is gathering data on the workload and incidence of injury among bowlers nationwide with a view to better preventing and managing cricket injuries.

It's research long overdue.

Concurrently, New Zealand Cricket has worked together with the Accident Compensation Corporation to release a series of brochures, aimed primarily at club and school coaches, raising awareness of bowling injury risks and the need to manage the amount of overs bowlers contribute each week.

But New Zealand Cricket also set a killer itinerary for the Black Cap's Bank of New Zealand series this summer with only a day between each one-dayer. Ditto the Black Caps' mad schedule in Australia.

When the captain's committee, including New Zealand skipper Stephen Fleming, convened at the International Cricket Council headquarters in England last year, it agreed and recommended that there should be at least two days between one-day internationals to allow players adequate time to recover and do rehab work.

Both Australian and New Zealand national executives seem to have ignored this in setting itineraries for the 1997-98 season. Perhaps an official ruling is required from the ICC before the issue is finally rectified.

"Bowling 10 overs full-on in a day and then hopping on a plane and travelling for maybe two-and-a-half hours is the worst thing a bowler can do if he has to come out and bowl the next day as well," says Nash.

"Your body freezes up. That's got to be looked at but I think it's starting to happen."

Nash is happy again. He is bowling at top speed and his batting has boomed after a period in which it was his only contribution to the game.

His cricketing equivalent of the Marlborough drought has been broken with a flood of god form.

He's in a new New Zealand team environment- new coach, new captain, new team mates, new attitude- and he likes what he's seen.

"There's a really wicked team spirit," says Nash. "The confidence of young guys like Craig McMillan and Daniel Vettori is outstanding.

"So often, young confidence is disapproved of in cricket circles. You get knocked and ostracised for it. It's great to see they're actually being encouraged instead so they can go out and play their natural aggressive game."

It is a comment Nash might equally apply to himself. What's more, he took more than a self-management lesson from his enforced holiday from the top.

"When it was all taken away, I realised just how much I enjoyed playing cricket for New Zealand and being in a team. I realised what I was missing, the opportunities and the lifestyle I'd been lucky enough to get.

"So hopefully that was my lesson- to enjoy every moment of it and respect what I have."

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