Australia’s incredible winning streak at the ICC Women’s World Cup came to a remarkable end last week in Navi Mumbai as Harmanpreet Kaur and CO prevailed in an epic semifinal on their way to winning the title on Sunday. Back in Australia, captain Alyssa Healy reflected on what went wrong for her side that night.
“Look, I’ve been better. I won’t lie to you. But at the same time, it is what it is. End of the day that, after seven weeks of a big long tour, we played some really really incredible cricket but didn’t quite get over a certain Indian hurdle, I suppose you’d say. So, disappointing in that regard, but I’m looking forward to seeing what this team can do over this next cycle because it’s really exciting,” Healy said on Willow Talk Cricket podcast. “(We are) playing some amazing cricket and teams are having to keep up to knock us off, which I think is really cool. Obviously I haven’t watched the final but India got themselves over the line which is really cool, and it’s great for the global game. So, from that perspective it was an amazing experience but obviously sitting here a little bit disappointed and it’ll haunt me for a little while that one, but that’s ok.”
Putting 338 on board in the semifinal was a massive effort but Healy actually conceded that they left a few runs out there and should have scored more. “Actually thought it was under-par,” Healy said. “I thought Ash Gardner played an unbelievable knock to sort of get us back up to that total, but I actually think we left a few out there towards the end. I think at one point we would have taken 330. We lost a few wickets towards the back end, but then probably the way that we’d set up the game, I think when when Pez and Phoebe were in there looking really good with their partnership, we were looking at 350 plus. If we could have pushed up over 350, ultimately it might have made a difference in the end.”
Former Australia wicketkeeper Brad Haddin then asked Healy about the variety of special performances that the players came up with during the course of the tournament. Healy reflected that why it hurts even more is because of the kind of memorable individual efforts they prodcued during the tournament: her own knock against India in Vizag during the previous record chase, Beth Mooney’s rescue against Pakistan, Alana King’s record 7-for against South Africa in Indore and more.
“That’s probably why it – I know we’ll probably get to it later and you’ll probably make me cry at some point – but that’s probably what makes it hurt more is that we’re playing so well. Everyone was contributing. Everyone was playing out of their skin which I thought was unbelievable and we had sort of half an off night and get done in a knockout game. One to reflect on, yeah, the team’s flying at the moment which is pretty cool but sad we don’t have a trophy to show for it,” Healy said.
Haddin also asked Healy if the conditions changed significantly as Jemimah Rodrigues and Harmanpreet Kaur put together a match-winning 150+ partnership. “The red soil at DY Patil there, it generally doesn’t let the dew affect it as much. I think the wicket definitely started a little slower than what we’d been used to. Played on black soil basically the whole World Cup leading into that fixture and the red soil probably was a little bit slower off the surface early on than what we had been used to. It definitely looked like under lights towards the back end, you know, it was sliding on nicely. I think we probably didn’t help ourselves in that regard as well.
“We probably weren’t quick enough to adapt to bowling a change of pace. It did rain a little bit. Probably made it slide on a little bit more as well, but we just sort of missed a little bit with the ball at the back end and but like I said, we created opportunities throughout our fielding innings to defend that total um and get key wickets along the way, but we just weren’t able to capitalize on that. and that’s what you’ve got to do in knockout fixtures in World Cups and that’s traditionally what Australia have done really well in the past. So, yeah, little bit disappointing in that regard,” Healy said. Two critical points in the Indian innings were when Jemimah offered catches and Healy and Tahlia McGrath failed to hold on either side of the Indian batter’s century.
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Healy’s own dismissal earlier in the afternoon was a bit bizarre as she was dismissed by Kranti Gaud for the fourth time in five matches over the last couple of months. The players immediately went off the field as the rain started pouring down.
“You know when you get a bad feeling? I was actually thinking to myself, I think I should just wait a little bit longer because we’re going to go off. I think I should just wait. But I’d already waited because we had a three-minute wait and the lights were meant to go on in the break. And then I said to the umpire, are they going to come on mid ball? Like should we wait for them to come on? And she’s like, they’ve told us at the end of the over. So, as I was set up, ready to go and the bowler was about to run in, the lights went on. Well, one of the lights went on. So, then we had to wait for all of the lights to flick on. At the other end people were walking in front of the sightscreen. There was just like a lot of chaos around which is sometimes what happens over in India. There’s just people everywhere doing different jobs around the ground and it was really frustrating. If I’d have waited a minute longer, we would have been off the field and then we come back on and have another crack at it.”
