Cricket: Nash no angel at the table

New Zealand Cricket selector Dion Nash. Picture / Brett Phibbs

Dion Nash is in an inquisitive mood. As the photographer frames him against the glass panels with the dying sun directly behind him, Nash wonders worryingly whether it will have the effect of creating a halo.

Perish the thought. It is hard enough to reconcile the young cricketer, more angry than angelic, and an even angrier advocate for the Players' Association during the messy 2001 strike, with the future diplomat around the selection table.

Nash, a surprise call-up to the Black Caps selection panel, epitomised playing on emotion. Black Caps skipper Stephen Fleming and Chris Cairns rate him as mentally the toughest player they have played with. There were times, most notably the fourth test versus England at the Oval in 1999, where New Zealand won purely because of Nash's refusal to countenance defeat.

Emotion, Nash agrees, has no part to play in selection.

"Emotion can be a powerful source but also a distraction. Even when I was playing I was riding a fine line - at times I got away with it, at times it went against me.

"Gut instinct is different. You identify traits in others with gut feel. Daniel Vettori is probably the best gut instinct selection of all time but you can't do that every time."

What makes an international cricketer?

"I guess we all like to think we had it ourselves. I like to think I had it so I'd like to think I can identify it. You've got to have the right degree of want. That's the key element."

Last summer, Nash clearly felt the want was missing. A chance conversation with him revealed he wasn't buying into the theory that we should accept that Australia was playing on a different plane. He was angry the Black Caps weren't even firing a shot.

"I was angry, yeah," he said with a smile, probably knowing that even now diplomacy is the wisest counsel. When it is mooted that, since his and Cairns' test retirement, the Black Caps lack out-and-out match winners, he begs to differ.

"Jacob Oram is a match winner, as is Vettori and Fleming and hopefully [Shane] Bondy when he comes back. Brendon McCullum and [Hamish] Marshall are coming through," he said.

"We have a team full of them. We just need them to start showing some personality. That's a confidence thing. We must create an environment where that comes out.

"When you sit down in a room with those guys, they're all highly competitive. They all have that edge, they're all niggly. They've all got those personality traits but they haven't been bringing them out on to the park."

For a man on record saying he is the "worst cricket watcher" around, it's going to take a quantum shift for him to be effective in his role.

"I've never been a big cricket watcher in the sense I'd sit down and watch five days," he said. "That's about wanting to be on the field. This is a slightly different scenario in that I'm looking for something specific."

Nash stopped going to cricket when he retired because it was still "too raw".

"There were too many questions: Did I do enough? Should I have played more? Could I have played better?" Nash said.

Nash, who is still on the Players' Association board, was a vocal advocate for the players. He appeared to be playing a game of brinkmanship, during the infamous players' strike, that rubbed many up the wrong way.

He concedes he'd have done things differently in hindsight but is convinced the game is healthier for it.

"That was too soon [after I retired]. I felt people were remembering me for the wrong reasons. What's that saying - you have to break a few eggs to make an omelette. I felt like one of those eggs."

Instead he threw himself into a short-lived broadcasting career, then into business, where he is a new product developer for local vodka company 42 Below. He's also heavily involved with CatWalk, the Catriona Williams-inspired charity aimed at finding a cure for spinal injuries.

The latter has personal resonance for Nash, whose mother Joan has been a paraplegic for 45 years following a medical error.

In short, he's become the man he's always hated - the one who's always five minutes late.

This appointment is another example of Black Caps coach Bracewell getting his man.

In an indication of how much faith New Zealand Cricket [NZC] is showing in one man, Bracewell was on the appointments' panel that chose the selectors who will select the team that Bracewell will coach.

The panel now comprises Glenn Turner, Sir Richard Hadlee, Nash and Bracewell. It is an intriguing mix. In Bracewell and Nash you have two guys who played with their hearts on rolled-up sleeves; in Turner and Hadlee, two who methodically broke the game down. In the past, Turner and Nash have clashed.

"I found him frustrating because I didn't think he understood me but there were loads of people at fault during that time and I think Turns suffered more than most. I don't think that there is a cricketer in the country who didn't respect Glenn Turner's opinion or knowledge of the game."

It's not as if Nash's relationship with John Bracewell started any more auspiciously. Bracewell, who was then coach of Auckland, was livid when he came into work at Eden Park indoor nets to find Nash, a Northern Districts rep, availing of the facilities.

"I'd snuck in at 6.30am and he got in at seven. I was having some throw-downs and he just blew. "He ranted, 'What the hell are ND players doing in here?', then realised what time it was and said: 'What are you doing here at this hour?' He quite liked the fact I was working at that hour."

Perhaps even quirkier than the make-up of the panel is the fact two of them have been lumbered with players not of their choosing.

Would it not have made more sense for the current panel to pick the 20 contracted players?

"It's a 50-50 call from NZC's perspective," Nash said diplomatically. "Either you go with a new team and have a clean slate, or they give them a last hurrah."

As for the "did I, could I, should I" questions that haunted him when he first retired, Nash has finally come to terms with them.

"What I do know is that every time I played cricket I gave absolutely 100 per cent."

The challenge now is to identify like-minded players.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY