Navi Mumbai: Australia women’s team captain Alyssa Healy has rubbished talks about animosity building up between her and India skipper Harmanpreet Kaur, saying they were just playing “competitive cricket”.
India registered their maiden Test win against Australia at the Wankhede Stadium before the visitors came back strongly to win the ODIs 3-0 and T20Is 2-1 in a highly competitive month-long series.
“I would probably just summarise it to competitive cricket is going out there, doing our job for the side,” said Alyssa, following the seven-wicket win in the third T20I at the DY Patil Stadium Tuesday, which helped Australia take the series 2-1.
Alyssa added the perception of animosity was because both of them approached their roles differently.
During the Test, Harmanpreet had thrown the ball at Alyssa in frustration while she was batting, and the Australian skipper simply smiled back. Alyssa took a defensive pose and the ball hit her bat to race to the boundary, while Harman’s appeal for obstructing the field was rejected.
“We both approach it (captaincy roles) very differently, and that’s over to her to deal with that. But, from my point of view, there’s no animosity there,” said Alyssa during the post-match interaction.
“I’m all for, you know, if I need to be given a send-off, then so be it. I’m all for it because at the end of the day, I’m chirpy behind the stump. So if you’re willing to dish it out, you’ve got to be able to cop it,” she added.
Alyssa backed Harmanpreet and the India team to come out stronger from this series.
“She has probably had really two hard series on the trot and this series has been a really long one. I’m sure that the Indian team will bounce back and obviously reflect on what these last couple of series has meant for their side,” Alyssa said.
Alyssa felt the India tour was a big stepping stone for Australia’s preparations for the next two global white-ball events — the T20 World Cup in Bangladesh later this year and the 50-over World Cup in India in 2025.
“We’ve gained some valuable information at the same time. Probably some areas where we can improve and some areas that probably that we’re nailing at the moment.
“It’s pretty cut-throat when you come into a World Cup. You’ve got to win games and you’ve got to get yourselves over the line. We’re going to have a squad to do it. “It’s just probably nailing down our plans and probably our shot selection, more importantly, over here,” she said.
Alyssa added that just two-and-a-half days of bad cricket during the entire month-long tour had led to the Test loss and a rare T20I match defeat.
“We’re here in India over a month that we’re traditionally at home spending time with our families and it’s the first time we’ve been away this time of year.
“Literally, the girls have just jumped in and played some good, hard cricket. I didn’t hear one complaint, didn’t hear one whinge. In the month that we’ve been here, we played two-and-a-half bad days of cricket — one-and-a-half days in the Test match and one T20,” Alyssa added.
Alyssa, who was adjudged ‘Player of the Series’ in T20Is, credited the team for the white-ball success.
“I don’t think I was overly deserving of the player of the series. I’ll accept it gracefully, but I thought our bowlers bounced back beautifully in the last two T20Is. Phoebe Litchfield and Elise Perry played some crucial knocks as well… It’s a team award,” she said.
Feel for Jemimah: Alyssa
The Aussie skipper felt for India’s Jemimah Rodrigues, who took Alyssa’s catch in the seventh over but the decision was given in the batter’s favour.
“We were being told they (TV umpires) were looking for some more angles out there. I probably can’t really comment too much on it. I didn’t really watch the big screen. I didn’t really understand what was going on,” said Alyssa.
“To be fair, I was walking off. I thought it (catch) went in quite clean. But, sometimes, I think we saw it throughout the ODI series as well… We had three of those overturned that we thought we’d got caught. It’s never a nice feeling,” added Alyssa.
“Probably for Jemimah out there as well, the way you feel like you’ve taken a clean catch and then all of a sudden it looks awkward on the screen.”
PTI
