Beth Mooney took the gloves while Healy moved to the middle order, with Georgia Voll picked to open on debut and Tahlia McGrath selected to bat at No. 8 ahead of three specialist bowlers. McGrath ended up batting at No. 7 because Ellyse Perry corked her hip in the field.
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Healy got through the match, scoring 34 with the bat and fielding without issue, but confirmed post-match that she would not play in the WPL for UP Warriorz and would also miss Australia’s three-match T20I series against New Zealand that starts just two days after the WPL final in March.
The Australia women’s team do not have any international cricket scheduled after that until an ODI series in India in September that runs straight into the World Cup.
“Unfortunately for me, I’ve got a couple of months with [my] feet up, so I’m pretty bummed by that,” Healy said. “But at the same time [I am] elated to have a little bit of downtime and try and get my body right. It’s been a really frustrating probably 18 months for me.
“You get yourself right back playing and something else goes wrong. So [I am] just going to have a look at a couple of things and how I can be better, maybe a bit more disciplined in some areas, and make sure I’m right to go in particular for that ODI World Cup. It’s going to be a huge load coming off not a lot of cricket for a lot of the girls in the winter. So just managing things to get right for that. But I’m looking forward to sticking my feet in an ice bucket for a bit.”
Healy was asked about her future beyond the ODI World Cup later this year, but she did not reveal her plans.
“I’ve got some thoughts in the back of my mind about what it looks like for me moving forward,” she said. “But I think most importantly for me, when I took on this role I wanted to get us to that ODI World Cup, and get us into a place where we wanted to be in a really great place as a group, playing some really good cricket, and obviously to hold that trophy at the end of it.
“That was what I said in my four-point PowerPoint plan to present my case as to why I could be captain.
“But I think for me, what I’ve kind of really enjoyed over the last sort of 18 months, two years of doing the job, is what we’ve been able to achieve and probably how the group has come along such a long way. I think for me personally to have played a little bit of a role in that, in helping drive that has been really cool. So we’ll wait and see what the future looks like.”
Alex Malcolm is an associate editor at ESPNcricinfo
Source: ESPN Crickinfo