Ending one chapter with a historic 158 runs, Alyssa Healy has said her final goodbye to ODI cricket on Sunday, February 28, in the third match against India Women. Besides the emotional farewell, the Australia Women’s captain is now the second female cricketer to score a century in last career ODI match, joining South Africa’s Johmari Logtenberg. In the first innings of the third ODI, Australia Women set a target of 401 for the India Women’s team to win.
Healy, the Australian Women’s skipper, opened the innings with Phoebe Litchfield who was the first batter to go out after scoring 14 runs off 20 balls. Then came Georgia Voll, who, along with Healy, secured a 100-run partnership in 82 balls. Voll’s individual score of the match was 62 runs off 52 balls.
After Voll, Healy takes momentum with Beth Mooney and creates another strong partnership of 100 runs in the game. Soon after Australia Women lost Healy’s wicket who ended her innings at 158 runs off 98 balls at the strike rate of 161.22. With the skipper out, Mooney takes the upper hand in the match and goes on to add decent partnerships with the other remaining batters.
Mooney was the second-century scorer of the match who remained at the strike with 106 runs off 84 balls. Batters coming in next were Annabel Sutherland (23 off 20), Ashleigh Gardner (4 off 5), Tahlia McGrath (2 off 4), and Georgia Wareham (1 off 2) who added to the innings. Like Mooney, Nicola Carey also remained on strike with 34 runs off 15 balls.
Alyssa’s 158 runs scored in the match is now the highest by an Australian in women’s ODI in Australia and also the highest individual score made against India in the format. In the 125 WODIs played in her career, Healy has a record of 3619 runs at a strike rate of 99.06.
Meanwhile, India Women’s bowling lineup were able to secure just seven runs in total with all of their five bowlers playing 10 overs each. N Sree Charani and Sneh Rana took two wickets each while Renuka Singh, Kashvee Gautam, and Deepti Sharma got one each. Rana gave India the relief after getting the crucial wicket of Healy in the 36.3 overs.
Player of the Match and Australia Women’s captain Healy during the post-match interview says that she is happy with the end she got in her final ODI run and reveals that she will move ahead to play Test matches.
Alyssa said, “I just think what a ridiculous sport we play that it can kick you down so many times and then give you opportunities like it has today. I’ve hated every milestone match so today was just sort of an opportunity to go out and enjoy it and it was one of the more enjoyable experiences I’ve had. So thanks to the cricket gods for that and that’s a nice way to sign off in the yellow.”
“But just to finish the ODI leg the way we did makes me really proud and I’m looking forward to heading to the WACA now and getting stuck in with a pink ball,” she added.
