The ‘champion of the future’

Nash played his domestic cricket for Otago during the 1992-1993 and 1993-1994 seasons while he was living in Dunedin and studying at the University of Otago. Nash did not play for New Zealand during 1993, which gave him time to complete the requirements for his Bachelor of Arts, with which he graduated in absentia in June 1994. When the academic year ended, however, cricket took over. Nash had played for a number of ‘second tier’ sides during 1993 but really rekindled the New Zealand selectors’ interest when he claimed 5/18 for Otago in a Shell Trophy match against his old province, Northern Districts in December 1993. He produced two more promising performances in early March — five wickets against Otago and six against Northern Districts — while bowling for an Academy XI. Nash was recalled to the New Zealand side a week later to play the Only Test against India and three of the following One-Day Internationals. He also played one match of the Pepsi Cup held in Sharjah in April.

Dion Nash’s international career was under way again, but the young all-rounder was yet to entrench himself as a regular in the New Zealand team. In that respect, his selection in the New Zealand squad to tour England in 1994 was a big step forwards, made possible by injury to fellow all-rounder Chris Cairns and the form Nash had shown during the New Zealand summer. Nash’s selection in the starting XI, however, was by no means a certainty. He played only one of the limited-overs matches and turned in an average performance, and claimed only nine wickets in the warm-up matches he played. Nash was a workhorse in the First Test and finished with the unexciting figures of 2/153 as New Zealand lost by an innings and 90 runs. In fact, Nash may not have secured a place in the Second Test at all had Danny Morrison not been forced out of the tour with a hamstring injury. That fact made the performance Nash produced at Lord’s all the more surprising.

Nash took 11 wickets in the Second Test, with 6/76 in the first innings and 5/93 in the second, the best bowling by a New Zealander against England. He scored 56 with the bat, a valuable addition to the foundation Martin Crowe (142) had laid, which also made Nash the first cricketer ever to achieve the double of ten wickets and a half century in a Test match at Lord’s. The extra bounce and sharp movement Nash extracted from a slow wicket deceived even the best English batsmen, including Gooch and Stewart in both innings. The only frustration for Nash and New Zealand was that he was unable to clean up the English tail. In a move which cost them a hefty fine, the English batsmen fidgeted and delayed after tea on day five, wasting valuable sunshine, until bad light forced Ken Rutherford to take his fast bowlers off and, ultimately, the Test ended in a draw.

Praise for Nash’s performance was superlative. He was presented with the Man of the Match award for his efforts and Fred Trueman announced that "a star is born". For the 22-year-old himself, however, the experience was bewildering, and he was overcome by the applause of the Lord’s crowd. At times, all he could do was smile. There is a little story surrounding the 1994 Lord’s Test which perhaps illustrates just how surprised Nash was with his own performance. Before the Test, Nash entered the visitor’s dressing room at Lord’s with wide-eyed awe but did not hesitate when choosing where he would sit. He chose the spot beneath the gold-lettered board celebrating famous bowling performances at the ‘home of cricket’. "I just parked myself underneath and hoped some of their achievements would leak down on to me," he told The Guardian newspaper a few days later. Nash’s wish came true, and today, his name is inscribed at Lord’s, commemorating the ten-wicket-haul he claimed there in 1994.

Nash’s 11 wickets at Lord’s were the stand-out bowling performance of the tour, but Nash was by no means a one-Test wonder. He left England with 16 Test wickets in three Tests and the New Zealand Man of the Series award. Nash also earned himself a two-year contract with English county Middlesex, where he went in 1995. In fact, Nash had attracted more widespread interest, and had received offers from four other counties before choosing Lord’s as his new home ground. More significantly for New Zealand cricket, the young all-rounder’s burst into the international limelight was a positive sign for what was, at that time, a struggling team and certainly the "silver lining" in a Test series which New Zealand lost nil-to-one. In Nash, the Wisden Almanack proclaimed, "New Zealand had discovered a champion of the future". What his Lord’s feat meant for Nash in the simplest terms, however, was that he now became a regular face in the New Zealand Cricket Team.

His next major tour was to South Africa in November and December of 1994, where Nash was restricted to just one Test when he suffered a side strain and aggravated the injury by attempting to return too soon. Any memory of the cricket Nash played on that tour, however, has been all but completely obscured by the infamous Paarl cannabis-smoking scandal. Nash, along with Stephen Fleming and Matthew Hart, was one of three players to admit smoking cannabis at a poolside party on tour, yet when he arrived in Middlesex in 1995, Nash denied using cannabis and claimed that he had been set up. Further tension developed when the players were fined upon their return to New Zealand, although they had been assured, having given their confessions, that their punishment would be limited to a brief suspension while on tour. The whole truth of the incident is still not clear, but today it tends to Nash’s credit that he admitted his guilt while other, more senior players apparently did not. Years later, Nash dismissed the incident as youthful folly: "I think everyone realises I was a bit stupid at the time. I don't think it helps having a name that rhymes with hash," he quipped casually.

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