How Alyssa Healy took her chance and launched a golden era for Australian women’s cricket

1 month ago 9

With a typically cheeky quip about the need to spend more time on her golf, Alyssa Healy drew the curtain on one of Australian cricket’s most game-changing careers.

It was not a huge surprise to hear that Healy, 35, had decided now was the time to give up cricket, with a farewell series against India to give supporters one final chance to salute her.

Alyssa Healy announced her retirement from international cricket on Tuesday.

Injuries had afflicted each of her past two World Cup campaigns for Australia, neither of which ended with the world’s most feared team reaching the tournament final. The side is regenerating, and Healy’s exit will advance that process.

But there can be no doubt that its future direction will be shaped in large part by the type of aggressive, barnstorming cricket that Healy had done so much to embed as the trademark of the most trophy-laden national sporting team on the planet.

Who can forget Healy’s destruction of India’s bowlers in that magical evening at the MCG in early March 2020, when 86,174 spectators were thrilled by Australia’s march to the Twenty20 World Cup crown on home soil?

Or two years later, when Healy utterly destroyed England with an innings of 170 to dominate the ODI Cup final in Christchurch?

These were the big occasions for which her brand of fearless, shot-laden batting were made. Healy could score right around the ground, and had the power to clear the rope over the bowler’s head on a regular basis.

By showcasing those skills at the top of the order, Healy never gave her opponents a chance to settle, nor her teammates a moment to think about anything other than victory.

Alongside Meg Lanning and Ellyse Perry, Healy had long been considered among the best of a highly talented generation of Australian cricketers coming through the ranks in the late 2000s. She was the niece of former Australian gloveman Ian Healy, and had plenty of wicketkeeping chops behind the stumps herself. No wicketkeeper has more international dismissals in the women’s game.

As Jodie Fields’ career wound down, Healy was granted a few opportunities before taking up the gloves full-time. Her work in there was well-respected, but for a time Healy’s batting frustrated. She looked a much better player than sub-20 averages in ODI and T20 games over the first seven years of her career, and members of Australia’s coaching staff puzzled over this fact.

Following the team’s failure to reach the final of the 2017 ODI World Cup in England, Lanning and coach Matthew Mott were pressured to improve things. Intent on making the most of the attacking talent in their batting order but also adding an extra bowler to the mix, they chose to take up the suggestion – made numerous times – of assistant coach Tim Coyle: Healy should open.

“Tim kept saying that she had the technique, temperament and the obvious skill set to go up and open,” Mott told this masthead.

“We weren’t really getting the best out of her later in the order, so we gave an opportunity there, and pretty much from the first time, she took it on and made it her spot.

“She ended up one of the best batters in the world and always delivered on the biggest stage, so I guess that faith paid off.”

Among contemporary shifts in Australian batting orders, this move deserves to rank alongside Adam Gilchrist’s ODI promotion in January 1998, and Travis Head’s recent top order relocation to win the Ashes, as among the most meaningful.

“I didn’t feel comfortable for the first eight years of my career. I was looking for where I fit in, looking for a spot,” Healy told Willow Talk, where she announced her retirement on Tuesday morning.

“It wasn’t until Matthew Mott came in, and after that 2017 World Cup, he gave me that role of opening the batting and backing me.

“There was some Bazball similarities. He said, ‘it’s not going to come off every time, but when it does come off you’re going to get us into a really good spot as a side that we can launch from’.”

Australia’s women’s cricket captain Alyssa Healy with her parents Sandy and Greg Healy and husband Mitch Starc (back to camera) on Tuesday moments before officially announcing her retirement.

Australia won the Ashes on home soil against Cup winners England that summer, and Healy’s contributions made an impact. A first international hundred followed against India in Vadodara in March 2018, and she was away.

In parallel with her run-making, Healy provided a spiky voice for the game with plenty of opinions, well-expressed.

She was a vocal presence within as well, once speaking up to encourage the team to see an injury to Lanning as an opportunity rather than a setback, and in picking up podcast and commentary gigs, Healy made her presence felt as the game grew appreciably in size and reach.

The WBBL, the women’s IPL and the Hundred are all major parts of the cricket calendar now, with players across the world doing their best to impact games in the same way as Healy.

After Lanning started running into mental health struggles leading to her tearful retirement in late 2023, it fell to Healy to become captain. She oversaw an Ashes retention away from home and then a resounding win on home soil last summer, on either side of those aforementioned Cup campaigns that ended in defeat.

Healy’s capacity to turn games had not dimmed – innings of 142 and 113 not out made that plain during last years’ Cup in India. But the combination of injuries, waning motivation and the temptations of life at home with husband Mitchell Starc, served to seal the decision.

Perhaps the best measure of Healy’s contribution is that, having inspired so many to take after her, Australian cricket has plenty of depth to ensure a seamless transition. As uncle Ian was overtaken by Gilchrist, so Healy has reason to believe the future of this team is in strong hands.

News, results and expert analysis from the weekend of sport sent every Monday. Sign up for our Sport newsletter.