Australian women’s cricket 2023: Alyssa Healy on the future and growing her family with husband Mitch Starc ahead of 250th game

Ahead of her 250th international match, Alyssa Healy opens up to BEN HORNE about her love of the game, her future and plans for a family with husband, Mitch Starc.

Alyssa Healy is reluctantly celebrating a major cricketing milestone but knows the most enriching moments of her life may well be to come.

Healy isn’t exactly thrilled Cricket Australia wants to honour her 250th international for Australia at North Sydney Oval this Sunday.

She’d rather not know about it, because from her debut to her 100th and beyond, milestone matches haven’t necessarily been the wicketkeeping great’s most memorable performances.

But superstitions aside, Healy is appreciating the time for reflection and to feel grateful for all she has achieved in a truly stunning career.

Having just signed a new three-year deal with the Sydney Sixers, she has no plans to retire just yet, but also at the forefront of her mind is thoughts of other significant landmarks far away from the cricket field … like starting a family with husband Mitchell Starc.

Alyssa Healy believes she still has improvements to make in her game. Picture: Warren Little/Getty Images

“I’m constantly reassessing and everybody tells me that one day I’ll just wake up and decide I don’t want to do it anymore. I’m really thankful I’ve never had that experience. I’m still really enjoying my cricket,” Healy told this masthead.

“I still think I can get a whole heap better at both facets of the game. I think I can grow as a leader as well and probably embrace that a little bit more moving forward.

“I’m constantly thinking about it and what’s going to happen after I finish and obviously I’m sure I’d like to have a family at some point.

“Managing all that and being a female are the questions we get asked a lot.

“At the moment, my family are really supportive of me going and playing and being part of these amazing new opportunities because once you retire you don’t get a chance at that.

“The day I stop enjoying is the day I hang up my boots, but right now there’s no better time to be in cricket I reckon.”

Healy is one of cricket’s most endearing and relatable characters.

Armed with a self-deprecating sense of humour and a penchant for winding up teammates, Healy represents everything Australians want in their cricketers.

Tenaciously competitive, but at the same time her childlike love and enjoyment of the game is just as obvious and infectious.

Healy also doesn’t mince words and isn’t exactly enamoured with conversation turning to her 250th match in Australian colours against the Windies.

“We don’t need to talk about it … yeah look, honestly, I’d rather not know about it,” Healy says, only partly joking.

“It’s one of those funny little quirks throughout my career that I’d rather not know about the milestone.

Alyssa Healy ahead of her 250th international on Sunday in a T20 match against the West Indies. Picture: Adam Yip

“My milestone games have been shocking. They’ve all been terrible. I’d rather not know about it and just breeze through and just go out there and it’s another game of cricket.

“But I guess it’s part and parcel of the game, right.

“In saying that, it gives me an immense amount of pride that I’ve been able to play 249 and hopefully 250 games for Australia.

“You’d take one when you’re growing up so to be able to do it that many times has been pretty special and I’m lucky to have been able to do it.”

Thrust into the Australian captaincy before the recent Ashes tour at five minutes to midnight when good friend Meg Lanning was forced to withdraw due to an undisclosed medical issue, Healy admits her own performances suffered as she struggled with balancing the team’s needs and her own.

Soldiering on with two broken fingers also didn’t help.

Healy is determined to learn from the experience and return to action against the Windies a sharper and more complete captain, and has taken on board some telling advice from one of Australia’s most successful international skippers, Belinda Clark.

“I was like, ‘how did you do it? How did you captain and just be really good at what you did (scoring runs)?’

“She literally just said to me … batting was the only time that nobody else was telling you how to think or how to behave or what to do. ‘It was my time out there.’

“Having that mental approach of, ‘this is the time I get to myself, I don’t have to worry about any of that’ (will help).

“Two broken fingers doesn’t help, but at the same time I probably found myself worrying about everybody else a little bit more. Which is what I do anyway but when you’re not having to worry about that sort of stuff (captaincy), you go out there and you bat and you do your job.

“For the first time I was a little bit concerned about how everybody else was going and what I could do to help and just managing the different levels of emotions that you get.

“I’m an empathetic person, so I feel what everyone else is going through. So to be able to park that and just go out there and bat is something I didn’t quite nail down but hopefully reflecting on it and learning from it … I definitely feel better for the experience.”

Healy is happy with her preparation for the West Indies summer having spent some time back with the NSW Breakers squad where she’s been able to ease her “grumbly” fingers back into action.

Alyssa Healy has been able to ease her ‘grumbly’ fingers back into action playing for the NSW Breakers. Picture: Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images

Australia’s sobering draw to England in the Ashes has served as a wake-up call that the era of utter dominance won’t be maintained automatically and the gap between the world beaters and the rest of the world is closing as opposition countries catch up with their resourcing into women’s cricket.

“The Ashes was the nice little wake-up call to an extent for us to go, ‘well actually, we need to evolve again and grow as a side,” Healy said.

“We lost two of our most senior players in the space of 12 months (Rachael Haynes and Lanning) that were high contributors to our culture, our values and obviously run-scoring ability.

“Looking at world cricket now, everybody has access to the same resourcing, the same facilities and they’re playing more cricket and getting opportunities around the world.

“I was never a believer in the gap, I don’t think it ever really existed.

“It was just the fact that we were able to win big tournaments and big games.

“But everybody is going to start beating everybody and I think that’s great for our sport and it’s handed us an opportunity to evolve and go, ‘OK, what do we need to do to stay No. 1 in the world?’

“That might take losing to work that out and find a style of play that we really want to adopt moving forward. We have to be OK with potentially losing every now and then. It’s great value for our group and it’ll help us grow and be better.”

Originally published as Australian women’s cricket 2023: Alyssa Healy on the future and growing her family with husband Mitch Starc ahead of 250th game