Laurie Nash
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| Batting style | Right-hand bat | |
| Bowling type | Right-arm fast | |
| Tests | First-class | |
| Matches | 2 | 22 |
| Runs scored | 30 | 953 |
| Batting average | 15.00 | 28.02 |
| 100s/50s | 0/0 | 1/5 |
| Top score | 17 | 110 |
| Balls bowled | 311 | 3741 |
| Wickets | 10 | 69 |
| Bowling average | 12.60 | 28.33 |
| 5 wickets in innings | 0 | 3 |
| 10 wickets in match | 0 | 0 |
| Best bowling | 4/18 | 7/50 |
| Catches/stumpings | 6/0 | 19/0 |
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Test debut: 12 February 1932 |
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Laurence John (Laurie) Nash (2 May 1910 - 24 July 1986) was a Test cricketer and leading Australian rules footballer.
Born in Fitzroy, Victoria, Nash was the son of former Collingwood Football Club captain Robert Nash, who, after his dismissal from the police force following strike action[1] moved his family to Tasmania to run the hotel at Parattah. Robert Nash initially preferred Laurie to become a cricketer and forbid his son from playing senior football until he was 20[1]. Although short and stocky (he was only 175cm tall), Nash excelled in cricket and Australian rules football from a young age and made his first-class cricket debut for Tasmania as a fast bowler against Victoria at Launceston on 31 December 1929, taking 2/97 and scoring one and 48[2]. Four months later, he made his senior football debut for the Roy Cazaly coached City side in the Northern Tasmania Football Association, immediately standing out on account of his skills, blond hair and confidence in his abilities. Nash made the Tasmanian side for the national carnival in Adelaide where he won the medal for Best Tasmanian player of the carnival.
Following a lively bowling performance for Tasmania against the touring South Africans in 1931-32, taking 9/137, including two wickets in two balls and breaking Eric Dalton's jaw with a vicious bouncer[3], Nash made his Test debut for Australia against South Africa at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on 12 February 1932, taking 4 wickets for 18 and 1 for 4 as South Africa were routed for 36 and 45[4]. A long Test career seemed assured.
The 1932/33 cricket season saw the Douglas Jardine led England side tour Australia and Nash was expected by many to open the bowling. Instead, he was surprisingly left out of what became known as the Bodyline series. While there was never an official reason given for his omission, it is thought the Australian selectors decided that the inclusion of the fiery Nash would only aggravate the already controversial series.
Nash's football career continued to soar however as leading Victorian Football League club South Melbourne offered Nash an unprecedented £3 per match for the 1933 season. Nash moved to Melbourne and immediately became one of the League's top players, helping South Melbourne win the 1933 premiership. Additionally, while playing for Victoria in an interstate match against South Australia, he kicked a record 18 goals.
Still on a high from the premiership win, any thought of Nash's inclusion in the Australian cricket team disappeared when, a week after the grand final, he opened the bowling for his district club South Melbourne against Australian captain Bill Woodfull's team, Carlton, continually bouncing Woodfull and eventually hitting him in the heart. He was not chosen for the subsequent tour of England.
After a few years away from the cricketing spotlight (although he dominated Melbourne district cricket, the Victorian selectors refused to select him and he never played a Sheffield Shield match), Nash was chosen for Victoria against the touring 1936/37 English team and, after having the tourists ducking and weaving, was picked for the deciding Fifth Test, with the sides locked at 2-2. It has been suggested that the Australian Cricket Board of Control wanted to veto Nash's selection but were forced to relent when the selectors threatened to resign if Nash was not included in the Australian side.
| Personal information | |
|---|---|
| Birth | May 2, 1910, Fitzroy, Victoria |
| Recruited from | City, Launceston |
| Death | July 24, 1986, Heidelberg, Victoria |
| Playing career¹ | |
| Debut | Round 1, 1933, South Melbourne vs. Carlton, at Princes Park |
| Team(s) | South Melbourne (1933-1937, 1945)
99 games, 246 goals |
| Coaching career¹ | |
| Team(s) | South Melbourne (1953) |
| ¹ Statistics to end of 1953 season | |
| Career highlights | |
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Nash claimed 4 for 70 and 1 for 34 as Australia clinched the series[5]. When later asked about his inclusion, Nash replied "They knew where to come when they stood 2-all in the rubber." With that, Nash's Test career ended and Nash never played another first-class match, although he continued to terrorise batsmen in district cricket. His 10 wickets at 12.60 places him at the head of the list of averages for bowlers to have taken 10 or more Test wickets and his 22 first-class matches reaped 69 wickets at 28.33 and 953 runs at 28.02.
Keith Miller, also a VFL footballer who played interstate football for Victoria in 1946[6], later declared that the non-selection of Laurie Nash as a regular Test player was "the greatest waste of talent in Australian cricket history", adding that Australian captain Don Bradman wanted Nash in the side to tour England in 1938 but that Nash "suffered injustices at the hands of high-level cricket administration", who refused to countenance his selection[7].
The reasons given for the apparent poor attitude towards Nash include his reputation for calling a spade a spade, his abrasive personality, which included sledging and even the fact that he wore cut off sleeves, which was considered a serious faux pas in the 1930s. Nash himself believed that he was a victim of the anti-Catholic and working class bias of the Protestant cricket establishment.
Nash continued to star in Australian rules football, captaining South Melbourne in 1937, when he won the club goalkicking award with 37 goals before causing a sensation the next season when he transferred to Victorian Football Association side Camberwell without a clearance. In four seasons at Camberwell, Nash played 74 games, kicking 418 goals[8] and won the club Best and Fairest in 1939. His football career went into hiatus however when he enlisted in the Australian Army in 1942[9], serving as a trooper in New Guinea[10] before making a comeback for South Melbourne in 1945.
Nash played 17 games for South in 1945, including the famous "Bloodbath" Grand Final, kicking 56 goals before retiring from VFL football after 99 matches and 246 goals for South Melbourne. In 1946 he transferred to Wangaratta to act as captain coach the Wangaratta Magpies, which he led to flag. Never one to do things by halves, Nash also coached country sides Greta and Casterton, leading Greta to a premiership in the Ovens and King league, becoming one of the few people to have coached two different teams to a premiership in the same season[11].
Nash continued to coach country sides successfully and eventually returned to coach South Melbourne in 1953.
Nash's great sporting success can be partly contributed to his self-confidence (when once asked who was the greatest footballer he had ever seen, Nash replied: "I see him in the mirror every morning when I shave"[12]), Nash was a superbly fit athlete who never smoked or drank and dedicated himself to a punishing exercise regime, something rare in 1930s sports circles.
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[edit] Post retirement
In old age, Nash had become bloated, "like an old, red balloon that had been slightly let down".[1]. Nash died in hospital in Heidelberg, Victoria. Following his death Nash was made a foundation member of the Tasmanian Sporting Hall of Fame and named at Centre Half Back in the Tasmanian Australian rules "Team of the Century"[13]. When he was named in the Australian Football Hall of Fame, the summary commented " One of the most gifted players ever, his career was half as long as many but it shone twice as brightly as most. Considered by many judges (himself included) the best player in the land..."
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ a b c Flanagan, M. (1998) "Laurie Nash - The Genius", The Melbourne Age, p. 8, 5 May 1998.
- ^ Cricket Archive Scorecard, Tasmania v Victoria in 1929/30 http://www.cricketarchive.co.uk/Archive/Scorecards/13/13334.html Accessed 6 May 2008.
- ^ Cricket Archive, Scorecard, Tasmania v South Africans in 1931/32 http://www.cricketarchive.co.uk/Archive/Scorecards/14/14148.html Accessed 30 April 2008
- ^ Cricket Archive Scorecard Australia v South Africa Fifth Test http://www.cricketarchive.co.uk/Archive/Scorecards/14/14160.html Accessed 7 May 2008
- ^ Cricket Archive, Australia v England in 1936/37 Fifth Test http://www.cricketarchive.co.uk/Archive/Scorecards/16/16097.html Accessed 8 May 2008
- ^ AFL Tables - Keith Miller - Statistics
- ^ Wallish E.A. (1998) The Great Laurie Nash, Ryan Publishing, Melbourne. ISBN 0-9587059-6-8.
- ^ Devaney, J. "Laurie Nash (City-Launceston, South Melbourne, Camberwell)", Full Points Footy http://www.fullpointsfooty.net/n-o.htm#Laurie%20Nash%20(City-South,%20South%20Melbourne,%20Camberwell) Accessed 30 April 2008
- ^ WWII Nominal Roll http://www.ww2roll.gov.au/script/veteran.asp?ServiceID=A&VeteranID=478579 Accessed 5 May 2008
- ^ Coverdale, B. (2007) "Australia's Winter Allrounders: XI Test Cricketers who played Australian Rules football at the highest level", Cricinfo http://content-www.cricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/296109.html Accessed 6 May 2008.
- ^ Anderson, J. (1997) "Maybe Laurie's Right, After All", Melbourne Herald-Sun, p. 91, 28 July 1997.
- ^ Reed, R. (2000) "Nash's cap comes home", Melbourne Herald Sun, 15 December 2000
- ^ "For the Record", The Australian, 26 June 2004
- Anderson, J. (1998) "Nash a Wasted Talent", Herald-Sun, 25 June 1998.
- Kieza, G. (2005) "The last time our Swans triumphed" Sydney Daily Telegraph, p. 1, 25 September 2005
- CricInfo Profile of Laurie Nash [1]. Accessed on 2 July 2006.
[edit] External links
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