England’s cricketers have been talking up their chances in the women’s Ashes. Alyssa Healy has fired back while also rubbishing Stuart Broad’s ’stinky’ claim, writes LACHLAN McKIRDY.
Alyssa Healy is used to bold and baseless statements from England, but usually it is experienced players firing the opening salvo in the women‘s Ashes war of words.
England’s Issy Wong and Emma Lamb, who have played a combined one game against Australia, made headlines recently as they attempted to talk up their side’s chances in the series.
Wong claimed it was a great time to play Australia, while Lamb declared that their Ashes foes are human and it’s within their reach to beat them.
Healy, who later this month will launch Australia’s bid to retain the women’s Ashes for the fifth-straight series, intends to show her side’s golden era of dominance is far from over.
“I think we’ve seen them be very vocal leading into every Ashes series that I’ve been a part of,” Healy tells CODE Sports.
“They made some bold statements coming out here in that last Ashes series and didn’t really follow through on any of it.
“So we’ll let them speak and do all the talking. It’s probably ironic that those two players haven’t played a lot for England.
“But at the same time, that’s the beauty of the game. There is a lot of unknown about the English side … that’s where the challenge is going to be for us to go, ‘Okay, we’ll just have to adapt to what they throw at us’.
“It’s exciting. I think write us off at your own peril, especially if they’re already talking about that, it’s a dangerous way to think.”
Healy also thoroughly endorsed husband Mitchell Starc’s swift retort regarding Stuart Broad’s claim that England’s 2021-22 men’s Ashes loss in Australia should be “void” because of Covid restrictions in place.
“I will say that his comments were a bit stinky,” Healy laughs. “They literally had the pool, the gym and the golf course during quarantine.
“Mitch had just come from our quarantine from NSW to Queensland, where it was two weeks in a hotel room, not even opening of a window.
“We’ve all done it tough over that time. To say that series is void was a little bit cheeky. But we’ll see how they play over there.”
The women’s Ashes commences with the one-off Test on June 22 at Trent Bridge followed by three T20s and three ODIs.
Ashes debutant Phoebe Litchfield, who was a teammate of Wong’s at the Sydney Thunder, was quick to send a text to the Englishwoman and loves that the comments are only going to increase the interest in the series.
“She laughed it off,” she says. “But everyone talking about it is a good thing, any publicity is good publicity as they say.
“I think the fact that there’s media attention and it’s getting built up is only going to do good things for the brand of cricket we want to play.”
Healy, who will captain the side in the absence of Meg Lanning, is under no illusion that the Australians are being hunted by not only England but every other team in world cricket.
Since the start of 2022, Australia’s only loss in an official fixture was their super-over defeat away to India in December 2022. In that time, they’ve won the Ashes, T20 and 50-over World Cups, as well as the Commonwealth Games.
“We know that everybody wants to beat us,” Healy says.
“It probably is really frustrating that we keep winning all the time, but we love it.
“We don’t want to be the team that loses or hands the Ashes back or lets a World Cup slip. We know what that feels like.
“We’re happy being the hunted, and we’ll just keep doing everything we can to be better every day and make sure we stay out there.”
The pressure is squarely on Australia to play to the expectations they set themselves. And while Healy exudes confidence in the team, she knows the beauty of cricket is that anything can happen on the day.
“If we turn up and we don’t play very well, or England plays out of their skin and get the Ashes, so be it, we’ll deal with that,” Healy says.
“We‘re going over there to win. I know personally I’ll be doing everything in my power to make sure that we do that.”
