Michael Neser stared out at the pristine water surrounding New Zealand’s Marlborough Sounds scarcely able to believe how the past few months had unfolded.
Not even his tranquil surroundings, as he cast out another fishing line off the northern tip of the country’s South Island, had allowed his Ashes performances to fully sink in.
After all, the Queenslander played three Tests having been called in from outside Australia’s initial squad, and took 15 wickets, which included a five-wicket haul at his home ground, the Gabba.
Neser, along with his wife Olivia and their three children, was on a three-week holiday on the other side of the Tasman Sea, where Olivia’s family lives, for a well-earned rest after a career-best but “gruelling” season.
As the 36-year-old waited patiently for the fish to bite, he was already thinking ahead to next summer rather than looking back to review his breakthrough campaign from the previous one.
Having waited almost three years between his second and third Test caps, the right-arm quick has his sights firmly set on playing as many as possible during a massive 18 months for Australia’s Test team after being rewarded with a national contract for next season.
“Maybe when I retire and I’m done properly it will sink in,” Neser told cricket.com.au in Brisbane after a gym and net session at the National Cricket Centre.
“I’m very proud of what I achieved and to be part of a winning Ashes series is pretty special, and I know I’ll remember that series for the rest of my life.”
When Neser wasn’t named in the Aussies’ 15-player squad for the first Test at Perth Stadium in November, his hopes for impacting the series were low.
Days before the highly anticipated Ashes were due to start, he had just completed a Sheffield Shield match at Perth’s WACA Ground.
But shortly after landing back home in Brisbane, the allrounder was on a plane back across the country to join the squad when fellow fast bowlers Sean Abbott and Josh Hazlewood were ruled out of the series opener with hamstring injuries.
While South Australian quick Brendan Doggett got the nod in Perth, spinner Nathan Lyon’s surprise omission for the second Test in Brisbane launched Neser into the XI for his third Test cap, all of which had been day-night matches played with a pink Kookaburra ball (previously 2021 and 2022).
The return of Lyon and captain Pat Cummins in Adelaide saw him sidelined again, but a serious hamstring injury to Lyon opened the door for Neser to play the final two Tests in Melbourne and Sydney – which were also his first red-ball internationals.
What fans saw was a different Michael Neser.
Admired around the world for his ability with the swinging new ball, the Bulls great had been grinding away with Queensland bowling coach Hamish Bennett throughout the winter months to become less reliant on favourable conditions to get results.
Neser shared the new ball with Mitch Starc in five of his six Ashes innings but took only three of his 15 wickets in his opening spell of the innings.
“Obviously I’ve got that reputation for taking wickets in the first couple of overs, but I’ve worked really hard in this last 12 months on trying to keep my ball speed (up),” Neser said.
“I’ve probably bowled shorter spells than the past but keeping my ball speed to maintain my effectiveness through that middle period (was a priority).
“I worked hard with Hamish Bennett to do that. And I suppose it paid off as a lot of my work came through that middle period.”
Bennett, a former New Zealand international, says he’s passionate about fast bowling, with the emphasis on fast.
Having just been appointed assistant coach under Johan Botha in July last year, he was rapt to have the speed gun out on Queensland’s exciting crop of young quicks, including Callum Vidler, Tom Straker and Tom Whitney.
But he can pinpoint a session at Ian Healy Oval in August where the discussion turned to Neser’s speeds.
“I asked him, ‘When do you actually practice your ball speed?'” Bennett told cricket.com.au.
“You want to keep your ball speed as high as you can for as long as you can, especially if you’re trying to play international cricket.
“If you think of Usain Bolt, when he runs and trains, he probably doesn’t always run at 80 per cent. He probably actually practices running quite fast … sprinters would practice sprinting.
“I remember we did a day at Norths (Brisbane Premier Cricket club) … and we challenged the guys to hit a particular speed or stay above a particular speed for six to 10 balls.
“He (Neser) hated it (at first), but … it was something that he embraced throughout the whole year, whenever we had the time to do it.”
In the quest for sustained pace for the then-35-year-old, Neser and Bennett tinkered only very slightly with his bowling action and run up, instead relying on the “live feedback” of the radar gun to help shape their decision making.
“At training, you’re not going to bowl as fast as you are in a game, especially at his age,” Bennett said.
“Because there’s no crowd, there’s no adrenaline.
“One of the sessions, it was 9.30am at Norths in August. It was windy, it was cold, and there was a dog shitting in the corner (of the oval).
“I said, ‘Mate, you’re going really well here. When you get to the Gabba and there’s 30,000 people there and you’re wearing the Australian top, if you can bring this sort of effort and intensity with that adrenaline you’re going to get from being in the middle, you’re going to be fine’.”
The raw numbers later in the summer showed the work had paid off, with Neser “consistently hitting between 135 and 138kph” and even eclipsing the 140kph-mark at moments throughout the Ashes series.
Bennett believes the extra few kilometres per hour surprised the English, who knew of his skills with the swinging ball but wouldn’t have expected his pace to be sustained throughout the innings.
A second related change to increase Neser’s impact was to reduce the length of his spells.
It had become customary in Queensland’s Sheffield Shield matches across the past decade to see a hot-handed Neser bowling unchanged for up to, and sometimes over, an hour, on the hunt for multiple wickets.
But data uncovered by Bennett showed that method was counterproductive.
“We worked out that when he did bowl seven, eight or nine over spells, and may have bowled well, that the next spell afterward was almost redundant, because he was cooked,” Bennett said.
“So, it was about, ‘How do we actually use (his) spells really smartly for to be able to have the most impact on the game and not wasting (his) overs if there was a dead spot in the game.”
After bowling 1,935 deliveries in professional cricket over the summer, Neser admitted his body was feeling “a little bit sore” by the end of Queensland’s Shield campaign in March.
But after a wholesome family trip and a second consecutive winter without playing in the UK’s County Championship, Neser is already feeling excited about what’s coming up.
The only unknown for the veteran is when his next match will be.
It could be in a Test match against Bangladesh in August or in the Bulls’ 2026-27 season-opener in September.
Or it could be in the country of his birth – South Africa – where Australia play three Tests in October.
“I know if I got to play a Test in South Africa, that would probably be the highlight of the summer,” Neser said.
“My sister and my dad still live there.
“Every Test is a privilege but definitely, I’d have a soft spot for South Africa.”
