Here we go again?
Nash made promising progress during the off-season. Initially,
his aim was to make his international comeback when New Zealand
toured Australia at the end of the year, but Nash was ahead
of schedule. At the end of May, New Zealand Cricket’s
medical panel declared him available for selection the Black
Caps’ squad for the one-day tri-series in Sri Lanka six
weeks later. "We have our fingers crossed with Dion.
He wanted to have another shot at things, and so far, so good,"
player coordinator Gilbert Enoka said of Nash’s progress
to date. It was expected that Nash’s name would be included
when the team was named on June 14, pending his successful
completion of a number of subsequent ‘stringent’
fitness assessments. After receiving the green light, Nash
told selector Ross Dykes that he was raring to go and, predictably
enough, he was selected to tour Sri Lanka.
"He’s about 80 percent fit and clearly his workload
needs to be managed," said Sir Richard Hadlee, after
naming Nash in the squad. "It probably means playing
one game and having the next off in Sri Lanka. We’re
more than happy to accommodate his needs." Not everyone
was so enthusiastic about Dion Nash’s latest comeback,
however. The New Zealand Herald’s Richard Boock
was, as always, keen to point out the contentious aspects
of the selectors’ decision to pick "half-fit"
players. The ‘one game on, one game off’ strategy
had been trialed during the one-day series in South Africa
the previous year with left-armer Geoff Allott. Allott, like
Nash, was another victim of multiple stress fractures in his
lower back, and the strategy failed. Allott never played for
New Zealand again after the conclusion of that series and
quietly announced his retirement in 2001. Boock’s comments
were perhaps not overly pessimistic, in the wake of the injury
horror story that was New Zealand Cricket in 2000. He also
pointed out that the inclusion of Nash and Vettori, both of
whom were returning from major back injuries, meant that bowling
‘cover’ would be needed, at the expense of greater
batting depth. "Is it really ‘Welcome back, Dion’,
or is it, ‘Good grief, here we go again?’,"
Boock asked.
Nash admitted that he felt "lucky" the selectors
were giving him another chance, but was obviously happy to
be bowling again. "I’m enjoying bowling again,"
Nash told The Press in June. "It’s nice to
be able to do what you do well." Nash made it clear,
however, that his back had not fully recovered and nor did
he expect it to. Instead, Nash reiterated, what was needed
was careful management. "When I’m bowling, it’s
pretty good at the moment, but every time you get stiff the
old aches and pains do come back," he said. Nash had
been bowling for about 40 minutes every second day for a month
without too much trouble, but he was not pain-free. It was
a matter of "degrees of pain", he explained. But
pain was something he had come to accept. His two sets of
stress fractures, Nash suggested, were proof that bowling
is an inherently unhealthy. "My stress fractures were
18 months apart," said Nash. "You can deduce from
that, that over 18 months of cricket your back comes under
a lot of stress and inevitably gives way". Subsequently,
Nash was fully aware that, despite his hard work on fitness
and ‘smoothing out’ his bowling action, his troublesome
back may give way for a third time, in which case it would
probably spell the end of his career.
For the time being, however, Nash was keen to get his place
— and his pace — back. He saw the one-day tri-series
as an ideal reintroduction to international cricket, because
the format limited the overs he would bowl and offered rest
time between games. "There’s definitely ways of
getting through when you don’t have to come back and
bowl 20 overs," Nash said. Ideally, he hoped that a rotation-system
could be used, to minimise the risk to himself and other bowlers
making their comebacks from major injuries. "That’s
an ideal scenario for me," he said. Nash had been saying
essentially the same thing since his first major comeback
in 1998, and would continue saying it after he announced his
retirement. Injuries to top cricketers was a world-wide phenomenon,
he said in May 2002, one which demanded action in terms of
less-crowded international schedules and player rotation systems.
Fittingly, just a few days before his national recall in June
2001, Nash was named as Auckland’s founding representative
in the New Zealand Players Association, formed to represent
First Class cricketers’ interests, including the concerns
which Nash had consistently voiced.
 Nash
bowled five overs in New Zealand’s warm-up against Sri
Lanka A but sat out the tour opener on July 18, opting instead
to make his comeback against India two days later. The decision
was simply a matter of caution in keeping with Nash’s
carefully managed comeback, said manager Jeff Crowe, who felt
moved to explain that there was "nothing sinister"
about Nash missing the game. Nash took the field against India
as planned, and truly was ‘back with a bang’. Bowling
at first change, he demolished India’s middle-order batting,
claiming his second-best one-day return of 3/13 off six overs
in the process. Following the match, Nash reportedly felt
no ill-effects from his return to the bowling crease, but
missed the following double-header with a bout of food poisoning.
Nash returned to play India again on July 26. Batting at number
eight, he made his highest one-day score of 42 runs in New
Zealand’s modest total of 200, helping New Zealand to
an improbable 67-run victory. He also took 1/25 when India
batted, and received the Man of the Match award for his match-winning
efforts with the bat. Nash also top-scored for the Black Caps
in his next match, New Zealand’s 106-run defeat by Sri
Lanka: ironically, his 23 runs were second only to extras
(25) in the New Zealand innings. The Black Caps did not reach
the tri-series finals.
When the Black Caps returned to New Zealand, Nash was pleased
to report that his back had not troubled him in Sri Lanka.
In fact, it had improved during the tournament. He was selected
for the one-day component of New Zealand’s upcoming tour
of Pakistan and seemed to be on-track for a Test comeback
in Australia in November. As it turned out, security concerns
following the September 11 attacks on the United States meant
that the Pakistan tour was cancelled, but Nash’s comeback
could be pronounced a success. The significance of his achievement,
physically and mentally, should not be underestimated. Although,
by now, Nash’s cricketing career had come to evoke a
series of injuries and comebacks as much as wickets and runs,
New Zealand Cricket’s resident ‘Lazarus’ had
made it clear that his seemingly-endless comebacks could not
be taken for granted. Nash also pointed out that the mental
side of his recovery had been more difficult than overcoming
the pain of his injury. He described the comeback trail as
a period of strong emotions and mixed feelings. As always,
Nash’s ‘never say die’ attitude seems to have
enabled him to persevere beyond the point where most people
would have given up. "It’s quite an interesting
time, I’m thinking about positive thoughts and trying
to visualise the good times I’ve had in the past,"
Nash said.
Next Page >>
[Retirement Feature]
|
