“If you’ve been watching me in the nets, it’s been a frustrating experience because I feel like I’ve had no rhythm whatsoever,” Alyssa Healy says of her patchy form of late
ESPNcricinfo staff13-Oct-2025
Alyssa Healy compiled an 84-ball century•Getty Images
Chasing 331 to win. In a World Cup game. With the stands full of noisy opposition supporters. Not the easiest job, unless you are Alyssa Healy. Or Ellyse Perry, for that matter. It required a record-breaking effort with the bat, and Australia did it with a whole over in hand. “That’s a really cool stat”, Healy said afterwards, and will give the batters “a heap of confidence” for the rest of the tournament.The innings Healy played – 142 in 107 balls – was the bedrock of that chase. Her sixth ODI century, but her first since April 2022. She has missed a fair bit of cricket in the interim period but it’s still a gap of 25 innings between centuries, and only her second fifty-plus score of the calendar year. Talk about good timing.”I think I was just trying to contribute. I think it needed somebody to make a hundred to chase down that total. Obviously you’d probably like two to make hundreds just to make it easy, but somebody needed to, if they got set, to cash in and have a good day,” Healy said at the press conference afterwards. “So, yeah, it was probably… it was my day in the end. It hasn’t been my day of late, but it was my day today, which was really cool.Related
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“And to get ourselves, obviously I would have liked to be there a little bit longer and probably see it home a little bit more, but I think to get ourselves in a winning position at that point in time was really cool, and I’ll probably reflect on that a little bit later and be a little bit happy.”N Shree Charani and Deepti Sharma returned excellent economy rates of 4.10 and 5.20 respectively, but the other three frontline bowlers – Amanjot Kaur, Kranti Gaud and Sneh Rana – were expensive. Particularly impressive was Healy’s takedown of the quicks, Amanjot and Gaud, each time she faced them.”It wasn’t a distinct plan as such. Charani was getting actually quite a bit of spin; she was kind of the pick of the bowlers today,” Healy said. “We identified that really well and thought if we can capitalise on some of the pace bowlers, that would be handy knowing that they really have [only] five bowlers in their attack. So, yeah, we thought if we could attack that it’d be great. But it wasn’t really a plan as such, it just panned out that way on the day and I think with the wicket sliding on it probably enabled us to do that.”Coming into the game with scores of 19 (against New Zealand) and 20 (against Pakistan), Healy wasn’t in rhythm, as she confessed. But where rhythm was missing, competitive instincts did the job, especially against Gaud, who had Healy’s number in each of the three ODIs in the bilateral series prior to the World Cup.2:24
Healy: ‘It was my day today’
“If you’ve been watching me in the nets, it’s been a frustrating experience because I feel like I’ve had no rhythm whatsoever, been struggling to find it, and I didn’t really know where it went before I came into the World Cup,” she said. “But I think once you step out on the field, your competitive instincts kick in and you kind of just lock-in to getting in the contest. Obviously aware that Kranti had got me out a fair bit throughout the ODI series, so an opportunity to go out there and lock in a contest with her and just sort of, I don’t know, have a bit of fun in that regard, I think sort of got me going and that was really a really enjoyable experience. And like I said, it was my day today, and hopefully it continues but if not, I’m sure it’ll be someone else’s, which is cool.”That Australia were chasing 331, “just” 331, was thanks in large measure to Annabel Sutherland, whose 5 for 40 from 9.5 overs took out the middle order and stopped India slightly short of where they might have been after being 192 after 30 overs.”Bellsy’s spell, I think, we got our length right in that department. We bowled a little bit poorly at times and probably gave India an opportunity to cash in whether that be at the start of the over or the end of the over, and I think we couldn’t really create a lot of pressure,” Healy said. “But Alana King and Annabel Sutherland actually created a little bit of a partnership there, created some pressure, created some opportunities. And then Bellsy sort of cashed in at her end. So that was really cool.”And I thought the bowling unit as a whole really hung in there, hung tough and created a whole heap [of pressure] in that back ten to, like I said, restrict them in a way to 330, which is a little bit daunting, but I think did a great job at the back end, which was cool.”