Nash the young swinger who can tilt Test balance
By Jack Bailey
From The Times, 29 June 1994

Whatever happens in the third and final Test match between England and New Zealand, the 1994 New Zealanders have made their mark. Mostly inexperienced, coltish and, compared with most international cricket teams of the day, refreshingly frank about their shortcomings, they arrive at Old Trafford for the match that starts tomorrow having made many friends along the way and having given England a fearful fright in a memorable second Test, at Lord's.

More unexpected than their ability to rise to the big occasion was that one of their number should achieve a distinction unique in the annals of Lord's. Dion Nash became the first man to take ten wickets and score a half-century in a Test match in 110 years of Tests there. Scoring a half-century from No9 in the order was quite an achievement; taking five wickets or more in each innings surpassed it. But it was the substance of his bowling rather than the record that really took the eye.

The tilt of the ground from the Clock Tower to the Tavern produces a slope on the Lord's wickets that can be disconcerting for bowlers who are unused to it. Depending on the end, bowlers who have a longish run find that in the delivery stride they tend to be thrown either away from or towards the batsman. Bowling from the Pavilion End, everything is canted towards the leg side. Movement down the slope after the ball has pitched is the natural result. It is what the batsman looks for instinctively. Bowlers of away-swingers and leg-breaks often favour bowling from the Nursery End because it maximises the degree of swing or turn.

The trick is to make the occasional ball hold its own or even move up the slope. Nash, in the second Test, went one better. Bowling from the Pavilion End, he consistently swung and seamed the ball away from the right-hander, who could not resist the notion that the ball would, in most cases, come down the hill at him. Nash beat the outside edge of the bat more often from that end than anyone, even Fred Trueman, could remember. Trueman's natural modesty leaves no recorded observation of whether he himself would have achieved the same effect.

Talking to Nash, it is easy to see why he and the other products of New Zealand's youth programme have become known as the ''Gee-whiz kids''. Wide-eyed with wonderment? Not quite, but Fleming, Parore, Hart, Thomson and Nash are all gifted cricketers who know they still have much to learn.

Why had Nash chosen to bowl from the Pavilion End rather than using the slope to aid his natural outswinger? ''I had bowled from the Nursery End during the match against Middlesex,'' he said. ''The ball moved and I beat the bat a few times, but finished without a wicket. Talking to Sir Richard Hadlee about Lord's convinced me that, if I was bowling from the Nursery End, the good players would always be in a position to leave the ball pitching around off stump. That's why I switched, and when I got Alec Stewart caught behind for my first wicket at Lord's, I knew I'd made the right choice.'' He went on to take 11 for 176 in the match.

Nash is modest about his achievement. ''I bowled too many short balls in ideal conditions for me,'' he said. ''The away-swinger was going and the ball was carrying on, off the pitch. But that is not good if you don't bowl a consistent length. I'd like to be able to hit the seam in the way Richard Hadlee always did, without fail.'' He would also like to be seen as a genuine all-rounder, just as Hadlee was.

Nash is made of the right stuff. He comes from Dargaville on the west coast of the North Island almost frontier country where, in the words of a colleague, ''they like to stuff it up the boys from the big city''. Local school near his parents' farm at Red Hill was followed by a year at Auckland Grammar, then a BA at Otago University and cricket with Otago in the Shell Shield.

He is unlikely to return there. He is planning his future, and a career outside cricket is in his mind. He is reluctant to burn himself out on the English county circuit. There is talk of a place at Oxford ...

Nash, 22, standing a little over 6ft, fresh-faced and open, has experienced what every cricketer dreams of. He has performed at Lord's and earned the applause of the Tavern stand each time he went back to third man at the end of an over. ''I didn't know whether to smile, wave or salute,'' he said. He smiled, and they took him to their hearts.

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