Mitchell Starc sheds light on the distressing period following Alyssa Healy’s dog bite mishap

Mitchell Starc landed from a flight to a text message reading, ‘Call dad if you need me, on the way to hospital’. He has now shed light on the distressing dog bite injury his wife Alyssa Healy suffered.

Mitchell Starc has shed light on the distressing period immediately following wife Alyssa Healy’s dog bite mishap that led the Australian women’s star to undergo finger surgery which forced her out of this season’s Women’s Big Bash League.

Starc was en route from Bangalore to Delhi ahead of the Aussie men’s World Cup match against the Netherlands when Healy called to inform the left-arm quick that she’d been injured putting her hand between the couple’s two dogs as they were fighting.

“She didn’t get attacked by the dog. So let’s just change that narrative,” Starc told this masthead.

“It was interesting. When we landed, we were in the air, so landed somewhere and turned the phone back on and I’ve missed the call from her.

“She doesn’t normally ring me anyway, so I missed the call and the message was ‘call dad if you need me, on the way to hospital.’ Okay. Cool. Yeah, it was an interesting 48 hours. All sort of worked out. She’s on the mend. And on track, but yeah, it was interesting.”

Starc acknowledged that the incident had been disruptive but he has since reached a point where he can laugh about what transpired.

Alyssa Healy had her hand bandaged when she returned to the Sydney Sixers. Picture: Getty Images

“I didn’t know what was going on. And then we got off the plane and spoke to her and she was pretty upset and it was sort of later at night so couldn’t get the surgery till the next morning. So it was a few sleep-deprived nights, but yeah, she’s on track now. So she’s in good hands.”

Healy has been named in Australia’s squad for next month’s multi-format tour of India and expressed her interest in taking over the national captaincy permanently following Meg Lanning’s international retirement earlier in the month.

Healy had filled in several times in Lanning’s absence in recent years.

The pair have long had to spend months away from each other at a time because of their crammed calendar, and that could extend further next year with Starc seeking to return to the Indian Premier League after a long hiatus, confirming he was entering next month’s auction.

“Yeah, I’ll be putting my name in, whether I’m wanted or not we’ll find out. I’m pretty keen to come back,” Starc said.

“It’s very much a quiet year next year, and good preparation for the T20 World Cup, didn’t finish the last World Cup the way I wanted to, and being three format players our time’s limited around T20 stuff in terms of taking precedence to the Test stuff, so a good time to try and go back.”

Originally published as Mitchell Starc sheds light on the distressing period following Alyssa Healy’s dog bite mishap