Women’s World Cup T20 2024 – Alyssa Healy opens up about injury: ‘Maybe she took the wrong risk’

Healy’s absence was not confirmed until the toss but after the match he spoke for the first time about a full ligament injury that runs from the heel bone to the base of the toes during a run between the wickets during Australia’s group stage penalty shootout with Pakistan.

“It hurts a little,” he said, pressing harder under his sock. “I ruptured my plantar fascia.

“It was just a matter of working with the pain and what I could handle. In the end, I probably only had one game left in me and maybe I took the wrong risk at the end of the day.”

“It was a really tough decision to make last night whether we were going to ignore it or not,” added Healy. “I tried to make a team decision and I sat down instead of risking myself.

Healy’s availability for the WBBL, which starts on October 27, and India’s tour of Australia from early December, is unknown.

“I don’t know yet,” he said when asked how long he expected to be out. “We’ll check that when we get back. The WBBL starts next Sunday so we’ll check that again as we go.

“Tonight was going to be a really long shot and maybe what I would have to go through to try to play this game wouldn’t be very good.

“It was difficult to do everything I needed to do to try and get out there tonight. In the end, I made a team decision to sit back and give the girls who are fully fit to go out and do that. That’s it and hopefully it’s ready and we can play some more cricket next week.”

Healy was an uncomfortable spectator as Australia slumped to 134 for 5 in a wild innings after being sent in to bat first.

“It was hard to watch, knowing you can’t go out and help,” Healy said. “But it was good to see a lot of positives in the tournament. It didn’t end the way we wanted, but I think we played some fantastic cricket.

“Knockout cricket, isn’t it? If you don’t go in on the night and it doesn’t go your way, you’re out. So, it’s great cricket. We’ve been in the same situation.” We put ourselves over the line, so it wasn’t going to be tonight, but we’ll learn from that and get better.”

“Mac got the chance to be the captain in my absence before and he did it very well,” he said. “At the time it happened, everyone knew very well that things were very bad and that it was possible that people would play different roles.

“I can’t fault the team for their confidence in taking on the challenge and going, ‘you know what, good, I get a chance to do this, do that, whether it’s the batting captain, whatever it is’, that’s where I feel like the team is in such a good place.

“It’s a disappointing night because we’re actually in a good place as a team and unfortunately one night bad people will write about us but I think where we are as a team is very exciting for the future. “