I had thoughts of quitting the game two years ago, admits Alyssa Healy

Australian Women Cricket teams’ swashbuckling wicketkeeper-opening batswomen is one of the best batters going around in Women’s cricket. Healy- an embodiment of Australia’s fearless approach- has been pulsating form in the past two years.

The Aussie wicketkeeper-batswomen is the leading run-scorer for her country in both formats of white-ball cricket. Since the start of January 2018, Healy has racked up 960 T20I runs in 27 innings at an average of 41.73 and a strike-rate of 154.83 with the help of 7 half-centuries and one hundred.

Her exploits in One-day cricket has been even more brilliant. In 18 games during the same period, Healy has churned out 998 runs at an average of 58.70 and a strike-rate of 109.91 with the help of six fifties and three centuries.

Healy emerged as the player of the tournament in the Southern Stars victorious 2018 ICC Women’s T20 World Cup campaign. Besides that, Healy was named the ICC Women’s T20I Cricketer of the Year and she also bagged the Belinda Clark award for being Australia’s best female cricketer back in 2019.

‘I was probably just frustrated with my cricket’: Alyssa Healy

But, things weren’t always like this. And, Healy has now revealed how she had thoughts of walking away from the game two years ago.

“I remember having this discussion with (national selector) Shawn Flegler… it wasn’t necessarily that I felt like I was at a crossroads, but I could have easily walked away from the game and been happy with what I’d done and that I’d contributed to successful teams,” Healy was quoted as saying by cricket.com.au.

She added, “I probably would have been 26, 27 at the time so it wasn’t so long ago. I think I was probably just frustrated with my cricket and didn’t really know what more I could achieve or what more I could do to better myself or my cricket.

Healy admitted that she had thoughts of walking away from the game as she didn’t know what more she can achieve. “You come in at such a young age and you play for a long period of time, so you’re not sure where the end is and you feel like you can walk away and do something else with your life while you’re still young.

I’m not sure (what convinced me to continue) to be fair, I think Flags reassured me that I was doing the right thing for the team and I was doing my job and that if I kept doing that then some more opportunities might open up.”

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