Dion Nash - "never say die"
By Kit Morrell, May 2001

Two months ago, Chris Cairns spoke to fellow injured all-rounder Dion Nash in Auckland, and was reported as saying Nash was "going to give it one last shot to try to come back", hopefully for the tour to Australia, where he has never played a Test. Now, in news released by New Zealand Cricket this morning, Nash has made that decision official.

On the surface, there is nothing remarkable about it. Innumerable cricketers have sustained serious injuries and had to make significant comebacks, including Nash team-mates Cairns and Daniel Vettori, also on the long-term injury list, who are currently making encouraging progress in their recovery. But Nash's particularly injury-prone history makes one wonder why he didn't give up the game years ago, let alone when nearing 30 and not having played an entire international match without injury since December 1999.

Nash is perhaps the best known of several recent New Zealand players with profoundly injury-affected careers, along with star all-rounder Chris Cairns, whose career since his international debut in 1989 has been punctuated by back, spleen, heel, rib and, most significantly, knee problems, and left-arm fast-medium bowler Geoff Allott, who took a record 20 wickets at the 1999 World Cup but retired from all cricket last month after failing to recover from his 6th stress fracture in his lower back. Nash's career, riddled with back injuries, is in that respect closely similar to Allott's. Nash, however, hasn't given up the fight.

Dion Nash, born in Dargaville, north of Auckland, was an enthusiastic cricketer since the day his brother gave him his first cricket set. His dedication to the sport was evidenced in the long travelling times he undertook for Northern Districts matches, his skill in his ascension to captain the Dargaville High School First XI, and his competitiveness in the multiple occasions when he tucked his bat under his arm and walked home from "backyard Tests" sulking. He went on to become a stand-out allrounder at New Zealand youth level who loved to bat, and bowl as fast as he could.

Nash first came to international prominence during New Zealand's 1994 tour to England when he became the first man to take 10 wickets and score a half-century in a Test at Lords. That performance earned Nash a regular place in the national side and a contract with English county Middlesex. His heavy bowling workload for New Zealand and first-class teams and poor management of his training, however, began to take a toll and in the West Indies in 1996 Nash suffered a back injury which restricted him to the one-day portion of New Zealand's tour.

Despite back pain, Nash returned to Middlesex that winter for the second year of his county contract but managed just one game before he returned home, unable to bowl due to a still-undiagnosed back injury. Back in New Zealand, the complaint the British press had insinuated was "in his head" was revealed to be stress fracturing and a prolapsed disc in Nash's L4 and L5 vertebrae. Nash found it hard just getting out of the bed in morning, and the general prognosis was that he would never bowl again.

But, somehow, Nash never gave up. He commented afterwards that the period on the sidelines and the unwelcome thought of a 9 to 5 job made him realise how much he loved his cricket, and his discovery of Pilates strengthening techniques helped Nash regain fitness to the point where he could bowl again. He lost two years of his international career but in the 1997-1998 summer, on the strength of his domestic form, Nash was selected to join the New Zealand one-day squad in Australia.

The "big one", as Nash saw it, his Test comeback, came soon afterwards and he was called "the comeback success story of New Zealand cricket". The appraisal looked to be slightly premature, however, when Nash suffered a recurrence of his back injury and missed the Wills Mini World Cup and Commonwealth Games in mid-1998. But, after more rehabilitation, he was a surprise selection for the Test series at home against India, and it was during the summer of 1998-1999 that Nash cemented himself as a central member of the New Zealand side. In fact, when Stephen Fleming was injured, Nash temporarily took over the captaincy, just a year to the day since his international comeback.

Nash was a strong performer through 1999. Though his World Cup form was unremarkable, Nash in tandem with Chris Cairns proved a truly world-class new-ball attack in the Test series in England. In India in October of that year Nash achieved his career-best Test innings figures of 6/27 but shortly afterwards he suffered another back injury, a prolapsed disc, necessitating his return to New Zealand.

The recovery period was shorter than in the past and Nash rejoined the Black Caps when the West Indies toured New Zealand in December 1999 and bowled well in the two Tests. He was increasingly hampered by injury in the one-day series that followed, however, and missed the entire Australian series after he was diagnosed with another set of stress fractures in his lower back. Nash commented at the time that it only became harder every time he was forced to make a comeback, but this was by no means the end of his story.

Nash next played for New Zealand in the Second Test v Zimbabwe at Harare in 2000. The stress fractures in his back had not fully healed and his selection was partially forced by the large number of other injuries affecting the New Zealand squad at that time. As it happened, Nash managed only one innings before experiencing back soreness, and soon afterwards was yet again making his way home to New Zealand.

As in 1996 and 1997, many commentators remarked that Dion Nash would never play for New Zealand again. Nash must have been devastated and confused, and his schemes in the months after returning from Zimbabwe ranged from reinventing himself as a batsman or off-spinner to making a full return to pace bowling at international level. Meanwhile he played for his domestic side, Auckland, as a batsman only, bar some unwise off-spin at club level which succeeded only in aggravating his back injury.

The stress fractures had still not healed, but by January 2001 things were looking up for Nash. He scored a century in a Shell Trophy match at Wellington which appeared to give him confidence to test his back in the nets. A few matches later, he was promoted to the Auckland captaincy, and began to bowl himself a few short, tentative spells. He finished the Shell Trophy with 5 wickets for the season.

After the Shell Trophy, Nash had to ask himself whether he wanted to go through the rigours and potential disappointments of trying to make yet another comeback all over again. It seems the goals he had set himself for his international career - 1000 test runs and 100 wickets (he is currently stranded on 93) - and New Zealand's tour of Australia at the end of the year were big enough "carrots" for Nash, and he travelled to NZC's High Performance Centre at Lincoln for a fitness assessment at the end of the season.

Nash's fitness is currently is better than what it was in Zimbabwe last year, when Nash felt he made his comeback a month or two too early, and he has been working in Auckland, bowling at a low level. If Nash is satisfied with his own progress over the next few months, he will work closely with New Zealand Cricket's medical personnel towards a possible comeback. Nash accepts his uncertain future, but has approached his current situation, like his previous injuries, with the same "never give up" attitude that pervades every aspect of his intensely competitive cricket.

The attitudes of prominent persons in New Zealand cricket circles have been perhaps less positive. Martin Crowe commented during the summer that Nash would never bowl again. Gavin Larsen remarked gently that a sane person would say Nash simply wasn't made to bowl. But, in the past, Nash has proved wrong all those who said his career was over. Now he is giving himself a chance to prove them wrong again.

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