Mumbai: Australian woman cricketer Alyssa Healy is facing the most challenging period of her cricket career as she gets ready for her first outing as captain in a multi-format series against India.
Healy is taking over from Australia’s long-time captain Meg Lanning, winner of two Women’s Cricket World Cup and five ICC Women’s World Twenty20 titles who also holds the record for the most Women’s One Day International centuries and is the first Australian to score 2,000 Twenty20 International runs. Lanning announced her retirement from international cricket in November this year.
Healy could not be taking over at a more challenging time as she is returning from a hand injury suffered due to a dog bite to her right index finger. She had to undergo surgery to treat the injury and missed a major part of the Women’s Big Bash League (WBBL) for the Sydney Sixers.
But on Wednesday, in her first press conference in India, Healy said she was ready to discharge all three roles as captain, Australia’s key batter and main wicketkeeper.
“Yeah, first I think it is unbelievably huge shoes to fill and in the sense of replacing Meg Lanning, I think the success that she had not only as a player but obviously as a leader of the Australian cricket team is fairly unmatched right around the men’s and the women’s game. So big shoes to fill on my part, but one that’s really a challenge,” said Healy on Wednesday.
“It’s really exciting to me. And I think my approach to it is about taking this group to the next chapter. We’ve built an amazing legacy over the last 10 years with Meg, Rach (Racheal Haynes) and Matthew Mott (head coach, who has since joined England men’s setup), but we’ve had a lot of change over the last 12 to 18 months within our squad and around our team as well. So the opportunity to create something new and, I guess, give the floor to the next generation of players to leave their mark on the game, I think is something that I’m really looking forward to. So, bring it on. India is the first challenge and we’ll see how we go,” the 33-year-old added.
Healy said she has recuperated from the injury and is ready for all three roles.
“Finger-wise all good. It’s been nice to get back into the game. I didn’t realise how much I’d missed it, watching the WBBL at home and coming over here and getting the opportunity to keep again and have a bat. So, the finger’s pulled up really well and yeah, I’ll have the gloves on tomorrow, which I’m excited for,” said Healy, who suffered a severe dog bite while trying to separate her two Staffordshire bullterrier puppies, Misty and Millie.
About the upcoming series against India, in which Australia will play one Test, three ODIs and as many T20I matches, being separate competitions and not one event with points for each format, Healy said she would have preferred a point format but said it was also nice to play for three different trophies.
“I think I can sort of not understand, but I can see the merit in making them all separate and sort of rewarding the wins as you go. I can see the merit in that. But on the flip side of that, we’ve been a part of a few multi-format series where the point system has come into play and it’s made the Test match in particular, it’s given a greater context in my mind, she said.
“This might be a little bit cheeky but I would have thought that India would have backed themselves in their home conditions and got off to a four-nil start. So, it does surprise me a little bit, but at the same time, it would be cool to just battle it out for three separate trophies,” said the Australian captain.
–IANS
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