Melinda Farrell pays tribute to Alyssa Healy, Australia’s stand-in captain without whom a seismic win at Trent Bridge wouldn’t be possible.

It was late on day four when Alyssa Healy made the decision.

Australia were closing in but the match was still in the balance. Her earlier call to bring on Ash Gardner and Tahlia McGrath had paid off; England had stumbled from 55-0 to 73-4 and suddenly a Test victory seemed tantalisingly within reach.

But Danni Wyatt and Sophia Dunkley were in the middle, both aggressive and able to change the shape of the game in quick time. Healy made the call and brought Kim Garth on to bowl.

Before Healy had any inkling she would be leading the side, before Meg Lanning had withdrawn from the women’s Ashes on medical advice, Healy had fancied the thought of Garth bowling in a Test match with the Dukes ball.

Her faith was yet to be rewarded. Garth had found some pleasing swing without much reward throughout the four days and remained wicketless. But, despite the more obvious threat of the McGrath and Gardner partnership, Healy trusted her instincts and turned to Garth.

Garth’s first ball strayed down the leg side and glanced off Dunkley’s pad before clipping Healy’s gloved left hand. The two leg byes didn’t cause much damage but Healy’s reaction was instantaneous as she flinched and doubled over in pain. The thick gloves could not fully protect the fractured index finger she had suffered in the warm-up match before the Test.

It wasn’t just one fracture; her right ring finger had suffered the same fate.

Healy swallowed her grimace and squatted behind the stumps. Garth ran in again and bowled with just enough outswing to graze the edge of Dunkley’s bat and safely into Healy’s mitts.

Busted digits be damned.

***

If the Australian team has a ‘public enemy no.1’ in English eyes, it is Healy. Aggressive with the bat, mouthy behind the stumps and willing to have a cheeky dig in the media, Healy has always stood out in an area of the game traditionally viewed as nice and politely smiley. Women’s cricket has, until relatively recently, been a hard sell in a largely male media landscape and female cricketers have been conscious of their secondary role as publicists.

But while Healy has always had a refreshingly brash streak, it’s one grounded firmly in good-natured humour. She knows how to play the game off the field as well. Before the start of the series she joked that the retirement of Katherine Sciver-Brunt, who got her out for a pair in the Canberra Test in 2022, would make for a more relaxing media experience in England and, while paying respect to Sciver-Brunt, admitted she would breathe a sigh of relief.

In Australia’s second innings in Nottingham, Healy came to the crease on another pair. She had faced just two balls in her first appearance, clean bowled by Sophie Ecclestone. And she had dropped herself down the order to No.8, sending in Annabel Sutherland – coming off a first innings century – and Gardner ahead of her. Healy had opened the batting the last time these two side played a Test and there was widespread speculation those two ducks had left her without the stomach to face the new ball. If she was under pressure from the media, unaware of the extent of her injuries, it was nothing compared to the jibes that met her as she walked to the middle. She was “copping a gobful” as she would later describe the taunts. She was also in pain, despite medication, and struggling to grip the bat.

Now the stat flew around Trent Bridge and online: Healy would become the first batter to make four consecutive ducks in women’s Tests should she fail to score.

There was perhaps some schadenfreude among at least some former England players watching. In the 2011 Test played in Sydney, England’s Dani Hazel had made a pair and after Australia’s seven-wicket victory a pear was discovered in England’s dressing room, along with a note from Healy to Hazel. Another duck for the Australian captain might prompt a reciprocal fruity delivery to the pavilion.

The first ball she faced from Kate Cross was a beauty, full and seaming away while staying low, too low for Amy Jones who couldn’t take it cleanly. UltraEdge revealed the faintest of nicks; Healy was precariously close to claiming the unwanted record. Four balls later she squeezed the ball between slip and gully and was off the mark, shepherding the tail and finding the boundary six times on her way to a half-century that helped Australia to a total that was ultimately out of England’s reach.

In all, Healy took five catches and effected a stumping – recovering from an initial fumble – along with scoring those valuable 50 runs. Her bowling changes, particularly in the fourth innings, combined with some unorthodox field placings – three widely spaced slips for Wyatt the most notable – proved effective.

But perhaps her greatest contribution as a first-time Test captain was the grit she displayed, shrugging off pain and sledges to lead her team towards a victory that puts them in the box seat to retain the Ashes.

Meg Lanning’s captaincy has been defined by an almost robotic ruthlessness; in Alyssa Healy, Australia have a replacement whose jokey demeanour belies an unyielding nature and bloody-minded determination to win.

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