Australian opener Alyssa Healy on Wednesday revealed that she had to do a “double rotation in the nets” ahead of the ICC Women’s World Cup game against Pakistan on Tuesday to overcome the disappointment of scoring just 28 in a thrilling 12-run victory. Defending champions England in the tournament opener.
Healy spent extra hours at the nets to make up for the batting flaws and eventually hit 72 off 79 balls as the six-time champions beat Bismah Maroof-led Pakistan by seven wickets with 92 balls to spare.
Pakistan had set up just 191 to win the 2013 winners at the Bay Oval on Tuesday. Despite Maroof’s unbeaten 78, a slow scoring rate and early wickets hindered his progress.
Healy spent more than 100 minutes at the crease in her 79-ball knock and was relieved to score some runs after a grueling double-net session in preparation on Monday, also not feeling her fluent best in the middle.
“I was tired of doing double rotations in the nets, I absolutely was. The wickets were actually quite similar. They did a little ragging on Monday, so it was good and at no point did it feel comfortable today,” Healy said.
“So I think it’s a positive for me going forward in the rest of the tournament – to back myself to make those scratch runs and hopefully when things go I can go about my batting and batting.” Might get some more flow as I know I can.”
After crossing the 300-run barrier against England and winning 15.2 overs against Pakistan on Tuesday, Australia’s batting line-up has shown a lot of form in the early stages of the tournament here. And wicketkeeper Healy insisted his star-studded top six get plenty of runs on the board to help them maintain their winning start in the competition.
“We can’t all be firing one at a time, but we find ourselves coming back to pick up where someone else left off. That’s the beauty of our line-up that we take the pressure off each other and it really , there’s a really strong top six, and then you throw what you’ve got after that, and it’s really explosive, middle and low order.
“So that’s our strength and we back our bowling attack to be able to defend whatever our batting group can get.
“We are playing some really good cricket and hopefully we can keep that going through the tournament,” Healy said.
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