When one prepares to bowl from the bowling end, the other one gets ready with gloves on her hands behind the stumps at the other end. We are talking about the Aussie duo- fast bowling all-rounder Ellyse Perry and wicketkeeper-batsman Alyssa Healy who have been playing together for four years and during that time they have tasted two World Twenty20 titles with Australia.
Both Perry and Healy were born in the same year i.e. 1990 but the former one is perhaps the most talked-about person in the world women’s cricket for her dual international identity as well as for representing her country in the highest level of both cricket and football World Cup. Alyssa is engaged with cricket even in her personal life having Australian cricket legend and former wicketkeeper Ian Healy as uncle and current national team fast bowler Mitchell Starc as life partner. Healy has always gone through cricket all her life.
After retiring from ODI in 1997, Ian Healy called it a day from Test cricket two years later when Alyssa Healy was just an eight or nine-year-old kid. “I remember him playing when I was kid. I don’t think I didn’t understand what he was doing. I just loved to watch cricket and when I started playing cricket, I came to know what he has done,” She recalled.
Healy’s father was also a cricketer who played for Queensland but never made it into the national squad. When asked who had more influence on becoming what she is today, Healy replied, “My father. He trained me with bat and ball and hit me catches. My uncle was known worldwide. That also had an influence on me. But my father had the biggest influence in my life to become a cricketer.”
Alyssa still gets tips from her uncle. Ian took her for dinner to give her guidance she needed during a match of the women’s Ashes series where Ian Healy was present as a commentator. Alyssa has been dating Australian fast bowler Mitchell Starc since that match but she says they don’t usually talk about cricket. “It’s sort of unusual but when we get along, the talk is not lot of cricket but other things about life.”
There is a lot to talk about Ellyse Perry who became the youngest Australian ever to make international cricket debut in 2007 at the age of 16 and in that same year she also earned her first football cap for the Matildas. “I suppose I’m very lucky. I started playing both sports when I was six years old. I played as many competitions as I could. I guess it just came along. I really enjoyed it at the beginning but then I kept on doing it and ended up playing both,” She said.
After playing every match of the ICC World Twenty20 in 2010, Perry became the first Australian woman to represent her country at a senior World Cup in two different sports as she was selected in the Matildas squad for the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup in Germany. Despite playing as a defender, Perry scored one goal against Sweden.
“They’re all different but obviously playing in a soccer world cup is special and also the cricket world cup. I guess both are special since I represented my country. This is something I will remember for the rest of my life,” she proudly added.
