Giving up the fight
Dion Nash announced his retirement from all cricket on 2
May 2002. Ironically, the ‘straw which broke the camel’s
back’ was not the back injuries which had threatened
Nash’s career for years, but a hip injury. The key factor
was not so much that he could not have physically recovered
from his hip problem but, Nash explained, that he no longer
had the "100 percent" motivation required to do
so. "The injuries have played a huge part in my decision
to retire," Nash said in announcing his decision. "Getting
over the injuries has taken so much energy, both physical
and mental," he said. "Unfortunately I have come
to the realisation that the motivation to overcome this latest
injury is not as strong as it needs to be." Nash had
realised it was time to move on. "It’s not just
that this is one injury too many," he said, "It’s
also the stage I'm at in my life. My motivation, self-discipline
and dedication to fight back from injury have been waning,
and I think it’s time to direct my energies elsewhere."
Nash summed up his own situation quite easily: "In the
past it’s taken a lot of work and effort to get fit and
this time I’ve had enough. I’ve had a good go at
it," he said. Nash insisted that the decision to stop
was not a sad one. "I’m really happy with it,"
he said. "I’ve known for a couple of months that
it might be the case but I wanted to cover all my bases and
make sure I made the decision when I was feeling fitter,"
he explained. Those words also explained Nash’s ambiguous
position during the previous fortnight. Nash described the
decision to retire as a relief. "I do feel relief,"
he said. "It’s all I’ve done since I was 13
or 14, and you tend to hold on to something like that for
dear life. To let go is a huge relief and it’s an exciting
time for me. Poignant and uncertain perhaps, but very exciting.
It’s like, ‘Oh thank God. I don’t have to worry
about it any more’." Some might have said that it
was a relief long overdue. Nash even had a party to celebrate
his retirement, during which he was interviewd by Paul Holmes,
and spoke a warm farewell and thankyou to cricket.
Now he had made the final decision to retire, Nash finally
seemed to be at peace with his cricketing career. There was
no longer any bitterness in his tone when he spoke of his
decade in the game. "I feel I’ve had ten years in
the sport and a few of them have been spent getting over injuries.
But I have been very lucky. Cricket has been a fantastic vehicle
for me to grow as a human being and to display the skills
I have," he said after announcing his retirement. Without
the burden of yet another comeback hanging over him, Nash
was able to stand back a little from his cricketing career
and focus on the positives. "I have had a fantastic career,"
he said. "I have travelled the world and met some great
people. I have no regrets about anything I have faced, even
the injuries have taught me some valuable lessons."
Although Nash had said just months earlier that he hoped
to play "a few more seasons", the timing of his
retirement in May 2002 does not seem to have caused too many
regrets. He had already achieved many career goals. "I’d
always wanted to play Australia in a test in Australia, and
having finally done it sapped my desire to continue,"
Nash said, never mind that his role in the First Test was
limited by yet another injury. One Test milestone Nash failed
to reach was the 100 wicket / 1000 run double he had named
as one of his career goals during 2000. Nash finished his
Test career with 93 wickets and 729 runs in 32 Tests, just
seven wickets short of becoming only the eleventh New Zealand
bowler to take 100 Test wickets. Nash said he did regret being
"a world class player at my best" and yet not able
to "flatter" his statistics towards the end of his
career. He never seems to have payed too much attention to
numbers, however, often struggling to remember such basic
details as the year when he took his famous 11 wickets at
Lord’s.
When making his decision to retire, Nash said, he considered
the possibility of continuing on to play the 2003 World Cup
in South Africa, but ultimately he was concerned that he could
go through the entire rehabilitation process again only to
suffer another injury without reaching the World Cup. The
hardest part of his decision not to go, says Nash, was telling
his team-mates. "I spoke to them a few weeks ago and
it was hard, trying to tell them that I wasn’t going
to be there for the World Cup and that it was over,"
Nash said. In fact, Nash identified the task of breaking the
news to fellow all-rounder Chris Cairns as the most difficult
aspect of his decision to retire, especially as Nash seems
to have made "a commitment" to Cairns, who was recovering
from knee surgery, that they would both be there for the World
Cup. Nash had indicated to his Black Caps team-mates a few
weeks earlier that he would most likely be retiring, but did
not inform Cairns until just before he made his public announcement.
"Some of my best memories of playing for the Black Caps
were bowling in tandem with Chris," Nash said, and singled-out
the 1999 tour of England and the final Test at The Oval in
particular, as the highlight of his cricketing career. Nash
suggested that his one regret in leaving the game when he
did was that he and Chris Cairns were not able to play together
more often. "If there is one thing I am sad about, it
is that we didn’t get to play together at the top of
our games," Nash said two days after announcing his retirement.
"If we had two or three years together we might have
taken the game somewhere."
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