Australia v England women’s Ashes Test: Ian Healy hails niece Alyssa’s toughness as she plays through pain at MCG

Nothing was going to stop Alyssa Healy leading Australia out for a historic MCG Test. As ROBERT CRADDOCK writes, it’s a stubbornness toward injury which is typical of her family.

The Healy clan are a tough old crew.

Alyssa has been walking around in a moon boot with a foot injury for weeks but quipped she would have to have her foot sawn off to miss the pink ball Test against England at the MCG.

Fortunately she didn’t have to go that far as she played as a batter and stood standing at first slip, handing the gloves to Beth Mooney.

It must have been a chastening moment for England when Mooney dived in front of Healy to spectacularly take a first over catch off a Maia Bouchier edge, reinforcing that Australia’s talent well is so deep that one person’s setback is often another’s triumph.

It was a fine effort by Healy get to the starting line and watching with interest from Brisbane was her uncle Ian, the decorated keeper who fought all sorts of injury battles, some of them kept far away from public view.

“She’s very tough … don’t worry about her,’’ Ian said of his niece.

“Sometimes she shows no concern for her body. She has had heaps of injuries of the last few years but she just plays.’’

A, yssa Healy speaks to her players before the start of the women’s Ashes Test.

Ian had a sense Alyssa’s injury was match-threatening when he invited her to appear on his morning radio show last week with SEN in Brisbane but, on orders from above, she declined as her chances of playing hung in the balance.

Ian knows well the challenge of pushing through the pain barrier. Cricket fans had to wait until his late-career autobiography to find out that just before the 1991 West Indian tour he fractured his left index finger in four places.

When Healy visited a doctor in Brisbane between tours he was told he would be out of action for an extended period but replied “I’m playing a Test in the West Indies in a couple of weeks.’’

“Batting was the toughest thing — the bat just kept spinning around in my hands,’’ he said.

A few weeks later he made 53 and 47 (run out both times) in a Test in Guyana and he now has an artificial joint in his damaged finger.

It’s reminder of the passion he had to play which has been carried on by his equally determined niece.

Originally published as Australia v England women’s Ashes Test: Ian Healy hails niece Alyssa’s toughness as she plays through pain at MCG