Alyssa Healy to bow out from cricket after home series against India

Alyssa Healy set to retire after the India home series — revisiting her staggering career, records, and impact.

With a typically cheeky remark about spending more time on her golf, Alyssa Healy has drawn the curtain on a glittering 16-year international career. While her retirement at 35 may not come as a huge surprise, the farewell series against India offers one final opportunity for fans and admirers of the game to celebrate one of women’s cricket’s most influential figures.

Injuries had become an unfortunate theme in her final two World Cup campaigns, during which Australia failed to reach the final on successive occasions – a rare and jarring outcome for the World’s most dominant side. Yet the team is now firmly in a phase of transition, and Alyssa Healy’s departure is likely to accelerate that evolution. Even so, the future direction will continue to be shaped by her legacy – an aggressive, fearless brand of cricket that redefined how Australia approached the women’s game.

Alyssa Healy to retire from cricket after India series at home
Alyssa will finish her WODI career as the fifth leading run-getter for Australia. The right-handed batter will have a chance to overtake or equal Karen Rolton to earn the second most WODI centuries (08) at her retirement period. In case of the WT20Is, she has bagged 3054 runs in 143 innings at a strike rate of 129.79, with 17 fifties and one century.

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Alyssa Healy’s performance in international cricket

In terms of her wicket-keeping, Alyssa currently has the joint second-most Test dismissals (24) for Australia women’s side. Her 119 dismissals in the WODIs will remain at the top for the national side. In women’s T20Is, the Queensland-born has 126 dismissals, which is 86 more than the second-placed Jodie Fields (40).

Among designated wicket-keepers of WODIs, Alyssa finishes as the second leading run-getter with 3420 runs. In this aspect, she finishes at the top with 2756 runs in WT20Is, with a 650-run gap from England’s Sarah Taylor.

“The timing’s right. I lost a little bit of my competitive edge. I’ve loved every minute of it, but I felt like every contest I wanted to be a part of, I wanted to compete, and it’s probably drained me a little bit more over the years. To be completely honest, if I had fought my way through to the World Cup.” Alyssa said at the NSW Cricket headquarters on January 13.

She made her international debut in 2010 and was named the captain in 2023. After earning a Commonwealth Games gold medal in 2022, the veteran led Australia to a clean sweep win over England in the 2025 Women’s Ashes. She has been named the ICC Women’s T20I cricket of the year twice (2018 and 2019)

Across the 11 seasons for the Sydney Sixers, Alyssa claimed 3125 runs in 127 innings of the Women’s Big Bash League. The 35-year-old celebrated five centuries and 15 half-centuries besides lifting the trophy twice.

“I feel like the cricket side of it’s one thing. But it’s the little moments and the interactions that I feel like I’ve had outside of the game, whether it be inspiring a young girl or boy to pick up the game or to talk to somebody about the game, that’s really what’s made this all special.” She interacted with the media.

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Alyssa Healy’s promotion to Australia’s top order brings enormous success
Following Australia’s failure to reach the 2017 ODI World Cup final, captain Lanning and coach Matthew Mott felt the pressure to turn the tables. After several discussions, they finally decided to agree on assistant coach Tim Coyle’s suggestion of giving Alyssa Healy a chance to open. It became another massive batting order shift in Australia’s cricket history, including Adam Gilchrist in 1998 or Travis Head recently.

Between January 2010 and September 2017, Healy collected just 375 WODI runs at 18.75 between numbers four and seven. She notched up only one half-century in that period. However, once she got the promotion at the top order, Alyssa’s average advanced to 45.11 with 16 fifties and seven centuries.

Alyssa Healy’s different contributions in WODIs

That was the same case in WT20Is, when Alyssa used to bat in the middle order; she didn’t have a fifty in 19 innings at an average of 22.91 between 2010 and September 2017. Subsequently, while opening, she collected 2243 runs at a strike rate of 138.11.

Alyssa Healy’s different contributions in WT20Is

Among some of her special and most destructive knocks, the 39-ball 75 against India before 86,174 spectators at the MCG remains at the top. It helped Australia march to the T20 World Cup 2020 crown on home soil. Two years later, Alyssa blew away England with 170 to dominate the ODI World Cup final at Hagley Oval, Christchurch.

Alyssa Healy still has the skill to produce jaw-dropping knocks as she did with 142 in 107 balls against India in the World Cup 2025. But perhaps, the decision is the combination of lack of motivation, number of injuries, and the temptation of staying more at home with his cricketer husband, Mitchell Starc.

Australia still have plenty of depth to ensure a smooth transition in the future. And just like Uncle Ian Healy was overtaken by Adam Gilchrist with the gloves and the bat, Alyssa has various reasons to leave the future in strong hands.

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