LockerRoom: White Fern wins health battle with Silver Fern’s help

Bernadine Bezuidenhout: 'I knew I couldn’t carry on like I was'. Photo / Getty Images

Bernadine Bezuidenhout was so sick while playing for the White Ferns, her body started to shut down. But now she’s back stronger, with the help of a Silver Ferns legend. She tells Suzanne McFadden of LockerRoom how she’s found balance in her life, helping at-risk youth through sport.

Bernadine Bezuidenhout remembers playing a T20 international against Australia and vomiting in the changing room.

It wasn’t nerves making the White Ferns cricketer ill. She simply couldn’t keep food in her body anymore.

“I was so sick, I couldn’t consume food. I’d eat it and it would just come back up,” she says. “My body had just started to shut down.”

That was three years ago, and Bezuidenhout was in the prime of her career. At 26, she’d played cricket for South Africa and New Zealand. Outstanding with the bat, she was also back-up wicketkeeper to Katey Martin in the White Ferns line-up.

But she was seriously unwell. She weighed just 55kg. She was over-training (“I felt I was never doing enough”) then not eating enough to refuel her body.

Too often, she was fracturing fingers. She was constantly fatigued, agitated and couldn’t sleep. And she hadn’t had her period in 10 years.

It had taken Bezuidenhout a decade to realise she was suffering from RED-S — or Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport. It’s a syndrome afflicting many Kiwi athletes, especially females.

That was when New Zealand Cricket put Bezuidenhout in touch with national netball legend Dr Lesley Nicol. A Silver Ferns centurion, Nicol is now a sports and exercise physician in Christchurch.

“Dr Lesley said: ‘Okay Bernie this thing you have is called RED-S, and we’re going to get through this. But it’s going take a lot from you as well’,” Bezuidenhout recalls. “I knew it wouldn’t be easy. I’m an extremely driven person. I love exercise, and I love being healthy and fit.

“But I knew I couldn’t carry on like I was. So we’ve been on this journey together.”

Bezuidenhout took two years off cricket altogether, to focus on getting well and finding her love of the game again.

Ten days ago, she returned to the crease for Northern Districts in the opening weekend of the Hallyburton Johnstone Shield — the premier domestic one-day cricket competition — and scored 163 runs over two consecutive days against Otago. The second innings was her second A-class century: 101 runs off 95 balls, including nine boundaries.

She immediately caught the eye of national selectors again, named in the New Zealand XI to play Bangladesh this week.

Bezuidenhout, now 29, is feeling stronger and healthier than she ever has. She says she’s hitting the ball harder, has more focus with the bat and gloves and more energy, and her lateral movement behind the stumps is quicker and more explosive than before.

But she also has a new perspective on life. In those two years away from the game, she found balance — setting up the Epic Sports Project in Christchurch, which each week helps 400 kids from low socioeconomic communities to discover sport for free.

She also works with youth in Christchurch Men’s Prison, helping them find good role models.

“My priorities have changed,” Bezuidenhout says. “The young people I work with have given me a better perspective on life. I see there’s so much more to life than performance in sport.

“So I think I’ve found fulfilment away from the game, which is awesome. I have never been healthier, never been better. Happy days.”

But it’s taken her a long, often tortuous road to get there.

**

As a kid growing up in Kimberley, South Africa, Bezuidenhout stood out in a range of sports. At 17, she was hand-picked to play golf in an academy and offered a full scholarship to a US college. But she found it lonely on tour and missed team sport.

She was also a talented hockey player. But she gave both codes away to concentrate on a career in cricket.

In 2014, she made her debut for South Africa at the age of 20. She played four ODIs and seven T20Is, before deciding to up-sticks and move to a “safer, better life” in Christchurch.

Determined to continue her cricketing career, the then-Northern Spirit wicketkeeper had to serve a three-year stand-down period before she was eligible to be selected for the White Ferns. And her patience paid off in 2018, when she went on the Northern Hemisphere tour with the New Zealand squad.

During that tour, she claimed an international record-equalling five dismissals against Ireland. She later played at the T20 World Cup in the Caribbean.

But in the summer of 2019-20, Bezuidenhout’s constant illness and injury started to seriously take its toll on her body.

From the age of 18, Bezuidenhout had been amenorrhoeic (no menstruation) — a red flag for RED-S. (RED-S was originally called the Female Athlete Triad, for the interrelationship between bone mineral loss, disordered eating and a loss of menstruation in women athletes).

“It started after I left school, and I never really thought anything of it. Because when you’re amenorrhoeic, you think it’s amazing as an athlete — it’s one less thing to worry about,” she says.

“It wasn’t a discussion you had with your physio, because the support staff were so male-dominant back in the day.”

But three years ago, she “started to become really ill” with what she later learned was a type of eating disorder.

“You’re so over the top about what you’re putting into your body that there’s no bad food coming in,” she says. “And with the training schedule being five to six hours a day, every so often — more so than not — I’d do extra because I felt I was never doing enough.” Instead of four gym sessions a week, she’d do six.

“With that massive training schedule, I just wasn’t eating enough food. And it came to the point where I couldn’t digest any more food; my body started to shut down. And this was while I was playing for New Zealand.”

She played her last game for the White Ferns — against South Africa — in January 2020, and decided she needed help. So she sat down with Nicol.

“Dr Lesley said to me: ‘Bernie, you have two options. You play and you are at 30 per cent capacity of what you can actually do physically. Or you can take a few years off, get healthy, and come back so much stronger’,” Bezuidenhout says.

“I asked what does a few years mean, and she said it could even be five years because I was amenorrhoeic for so long. I was in the prime of my career, and I’d already lost three years waiting to be able to play for New Zealand.

“But I knew I was so sick I couldn’t carry on.”

Bezuidenhout went on medication to help her to digest food, and then tried hormone replacement therapy (HRT), “but it made me feel absolutely horrendous – so I said let my body come right on its own.”

It was a tough time mentally for Bezuidenhout, too — fearing her career could be over, and questioning who she was if she wasn’t playing cricket.

“I took a long deep breath, and realised I needed to surround myself with really good people and I needed to find who I was as a person,” she says. “I’m a Christian person, so my faith is tied into who I am.

“And I realised how I perform doesn’t mean I have less or more value as a human. It was cool to walk into a room and people say: ‘Hey Bernie, how are you?’ Not ‘How’s cricket going?’”

**

Almost three years down the track, Bezuidenhout admits her eating is still a work in progress. Which is quite funny, she says, because she’s a trained nutritionist.

“I still have a fear of gaining weight and getting fat, or not being happy with how I look,” she says. “I’m no longer tracking my food — I was a tracker of every calorie coming in. I now listen to my body — if I’m hungry I eat.

“I’m not quite where I need to be, but at least my team, and the people around me, are aware.”

She now has regular periods: “And I can conceive children again.” Her bone density is better, because of the weight training she’s done.

Bezuidenhout can now recognise the indicators when she’s fatigued: a lack of sleep and heavy legs. “In the high performance environment, there’s so much pressure to push through. But I won’t go down that path again because I now know what to look for,” she says.

Northern Districts Cricket have been “super supportive” in her comeback, says Bezuidenhout.

Ian Sandbrook, ND’s general manager of performance and talent, says they’re delighted to have her back in their playing group this season — especially after a typically explosive start with the bat.

“She’s a class act with the bat and gloves, and has already made a huge impact this season,” he says. “Not only does she bring her undoubted skill to our programme, but her experience, work ethic and competitive spirit adds so much to our group and helps develop our talented youngsters. We’re excited to see her impact in the coming Super Smash competition.”

Though Bezuidenhout has built a strong working partnership with the team’s trainer and physio, she admits talking about her menstrual health can still be awkward.

“I try to be as open about it as I can: ‘I’m on my period, I’m not feeling good, this isn’t a good workout for me today, can we adapt it?’” she says.

“If only more trainers could educate themselves in women’s sport — at school and high performance level. The conversation around our menstrual cycles needs to be more normalised. Our young athletes need to know more about it, too.”

Bezuidenhout found it difficult watching the White Ferns play in a home World Cup this year. “But it set the fire going again, and I’m ready to go now,” she says.

The opportunity to play for the New Zealand XI in Wednesday’s second game against Bangladesh at Lincoln Oval puts Bezuidenhout back in the frame for the White Ferns. Is she ready for that?

“Right now, I just want to enjoy the game and take it one day at a time,” she says. “You always strive to be at your best, but I want to get through the season healthily, be in sync with my eating and make sure I’m looking after myself. And whatever comes with that, I’ll be more ready than ever before.”

**

Growing up “as a white person in a bubble of privilege”, Bezuidenhout was used to seeing poverty in South Africa. “Coming here to a first-world country, I didn’t expect there to be much need,” she says.

“Because I played for the White Ferns, it opened doors of opportunity where I could go in and coach kids, speak to kids. And I was so shocked and humbled by the experience, and I thought, hang on, there’s such a need in communities around the corner from us that we’re not even aware of.”

With a passion for working with children, Bezuidenhout wanted to find a way where she could improve the lives of young people through sport.

“I started working in the Christchurch Men’s Prison and I met young men who were such talented athletes who lacked good role models in their lives. And I thought what can I do to prevent kids ending up in this space?” she says.

She set up the Epic Sports Project charitable trust in Christchurch two years ago, with the help of fellow South African and former Northern Spirit bowler, Carolyn Esterhuizen.

“In New Zealand, we all speak the language of sport. It brings people together,” Bezuidenhout says. “I can’t change their home situations, but I can give kids a sense of value. That’s what we do at Epic, we use sport as a vehicle to connect our struggling youth with good role models.

“We’re working with 400 kids a week, running 16 sessions. I’m going back to work with youth at Christchurch Men’s Prison as part of their weekly programme.

“It’s probably been the best two years of my life. I’ve got more out of this than anything. I’ve realised what is life if we’re not making a difference? If we’re just living for ourselves.”

The community has got on board, too. The Hornby Hockey Club donate the use of their turf every Monday so Epic can introduce kids to the game for free. Bezuidenhout, who played hockey for South African Schools, is thrilled the sport has taken off.

It’s her dream to have Epic operating in low socioeconomic communities throughout the country.

“Our mission is to inspire hope,” she says. “Sometimes we forget about the little things we have. We see kids coming in who haven’t eaten, wearing ripped singlets and no shoes. It humbles you and makes you think you have nothing to complain about.”

Bezuidenhout believes so much good has come out of what was a dire situation in her life.

“I’ve come through this such a better, stronger, healthier person. And I actually wouldn’t change it for the world because I found myself within the process, which is really cool.”

* The White Ferns start their series against Bangladesh — three T20s, then three ODIs — this Friday in Christchurch.

This story was originally published at Newsroom.co.nz and is republished with permission.