Australian cricket star Alyssa Healy’s ‘pipe dream’ for Boxing Day-style women’s match
One of Australia’s cricketing stars has called for a women’s version of one of the most iconic events on the Australian sporting calendar.
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Cricket star Alyssa Healy has called for Australia’s women’s team to be given the opportunity to play an annual marquee Test match similar to the Boxing Day Test.
Healy is gearing up for a multi-format series against India beginning next week, which will see the two nations contest three one-day internationals, a one-off Test match and three T20 internationals in Queensland.
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The wicketkeeper-batter has played 201 matches across all formats in her illustrious career, but only four of those have been Test matches — the most recent against England in 2019.
Australia will take on India and England in Test matches on home soil this season — the first time the side will play two Tests in a single summer.
“The Test matches are just so much more special for us simply because we don’t play a lot of them,” Healy said.
“It is the pinnacle of out sport, it’s the ultimate challenge and the ultimate test of our abilities for a long period of time. I’m really excited for it.
“There’s no way I ever thought we’d play two Tests in a summer before so to be able to play against India and England for the Ashes is really exciting.”
Healy welcomed the move to play more matches in the longer format but would like to see Australia’s women’s cricket team given the opportunity to play an annual marquee match, similar to the iconic Boxing Day Test the men’s team plays.
“But the goal for me — the boys have their designated Test match timeslots every summer,” she said.
“I look at the Boxing Day Test, we know it’s going to be on the 26th of December and that’s when we know they show up and everyone goes to the Boxing Day Test.
“I would love to see the same thing happen for us every summer. Imagine, you know, November 1, Australia is playing a pink ball Test at North Sydney Oval against whatever the opposition may be.
“I would love to see that happen. It’s obviously a pipe dream and I’ll do whatever I can to keep pushing that point forward.
“But at least for the minute it’s great that the conversations are being had and there’s three international sides (Australia, England and India) that are willing to play the Test because I think it’s a great thing for us.”
Healy said she would love to see more countries willing to contest multi-format series, where games across all three formats are played and an overall points score is tallied, with Test matches receiving the most weighting.
“It’s great as a player that people are open to that conversation to playing Test cricket again,” the 31-year-old said.
“And now that we’ve got three sides that have at least put their hand up to say, ‘Yep we want to do it, let’s make it happen’ and play these multi-format series which are really fun to be a part of.
“You add that points structure in and it just adds a whole other ball game. It’s great that the conversations are being had and we’d obviously love to see a few more nations put their hand up.
“I think now that the conversations are being had and we can see that it can work. I mean why not? Why wouldn’t another board or organisation potentially suggest that? Let’s work together and make something work. I love that that’s being spoken about.
“I wouldn’t say that it’s going to be the new norm but I would love to see, imagine the Kiwis stand up and say, ‘Oh, we’d be really interested in playing one of these multi-format series, it would be fun to be a part of’. Yeah, it would be cool.”
Healy was frustrated when last year’s Indian Premier League was scheduled to clash with the women’s Big Bash League, effectively barring Australia’s best players from playing in the IPL and India’s stars participating in the WBBL.
She said the upcoming Indian series would be a great chance to sort out any issues and try to come to an agreement to hold both tournaments at different times of the year.
“We’d love to sit down and talk about it and talk about potentially being involved in it,” Healy said.
“Obviously we, maybe me more than anybody else, were visibly pretty disappointed with the scheduling of it last time right in the middle of the WBBL simply because we obviously want the best international players to be part of our competition and that includes quite a large contingent of the Indian side, and obviously we would love the opportunity to go and play in the women’s IPL as well.
“We’d love to see it get off the ground. It’s a place that loves the game of cricket and if we can help grow the game for women in India and right around the world with the IPL, I think that’s a great thing.
“The more we talk about, the more we might be able to get it off the ground. Maybe we can sit down and have a chat about it throughout the series.”
The women’s ODI series between Australia and India begins Tuesday 21 September, with every match of the series live on Fox Cricket and Kayo.
Originally published as Australian cricket star Alyssa Healy’s ‘pipe dream’ for Boxing Day-style women’s match
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