Nash in spin after thriller
From The Evening Post, January 10, 1998

Brisbane: After almost two years away from international cricket fighting a back injury, New Zealand all-rounder Dion Nash had trouble stopping his head spinning after a whirlwind return to the big-time last night.

Nash said it was "almost too painful" to talk about his contribution to the two-run loss to South Africa after he was caught out on the boundary off the last ball. Three runs would have given New Zealand the 301 it needed to cap one of the most amazing comebacks in international one-day cricket.

New Zealand finished with 298 for 9, heart-breakingly close after earlier slumping to 97 for 5.

"To come so far and get so close but lose on the last ball is just too painful to talk about," Nash said. "Not many teams have chased 300 and got so close."

Nash, 26, continues to battle a back injury which has kept him out of the New Zealand team since early 1996 and last night showed how sadly he had been missed with a complete all-round performance.

As bowler, he took one wicket for 52 runs off 10 overs. As a fielder he took two good catches and a magnificent "non-catch", and as a batsman he cracked 38 runs off 31 balls.

On rejoining the team, Nash said his primary goal was to earn the respect of his teammates with his performance. He felt he had gone some way to attaining that goal already. "I've still got a lot of work to do on my game."

In the hectic final over, Nash said "lots of things were going through my mind" as he tried to figure out where to hit Shaun Pollock on the last ball.

"In the end I hit it too well and put it in front of midwicket and got caught."

Nash was involved in another incident while fielding, leaping high to "catch" Hansie Cronje on the boundary. While he took the ball cleanly, he was falling backwards and knew that if he fell over the boundary rope with the ball he would give away six runs. Instead, he threw the ball back in-field, restricting the scoring to two.

- NZPA

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