Sharjah, Oct 14
The future of Alyssa Healy's involvement in the 2024 Women's T20 World Cup remains uncertain as she missed the side's thrilling nine-run win against India due to an acute right foot injury. Stand-in captain Tahlia McGrath disclosed that Alyssa, who entered the Sharjah Cricket Stadium on crutches and moon boot, wasted no time in contacting her to discuss tactical planning and offer her assistance based on the team's requirements shortly after being ruled out of Sunday's game.
"She's been great. She's such a passionate cricketer that she wanted to be involved in every single aspect, and she sent me a message straight away (after she was injured) asking me what I needed and how she could help. She was in our meeting when we were working out match-ups."
"From all reports she was a very painful watcher who just wanted to be out there and wanted to be involved. She's huge for this team and she's well and truly part of it, whether she's on the field or off the field, she helps out enormously and we all love getting around her at the moment," said Tahlia to reporters.
Australia also managed to survive an unbeaten 54 from India captain Harmanpreet Kaur, who single-handedly kept her side in the hunt. Tahlia felt not allowing Harmanpreet to cut loose early on, especially when there were no boundaries from overs 8-10, eventually allowed Australia to scrape through.
"(Harmanpreet) controls run chases unbelievably well we've seen her do it time and time again. As soon as Harman's at the wicket in a run chase you never feel fully in control because she can just go through the gears really quick and take a game away from you."
"So I thought we contained her really well early and then never quite let her get away ... in saying that, she batted really well in some tough conditions but I was really happy with the way we contained her," she added.
Asked on how she would compare an India-Australia rivalry to the England-Australia one, Tahlia remarked, "Every game we play (against India) comes down to the wire. They're always hard fought and there's always crucial moments in there, there's always a bit of controversy. It always feels like it's a high stakes, enormous game. Whenever it's an India-Australia game, everyone shows up and it's always a cracker of a game."
With Australia not getting to know their semi-final opponent till Tuesday's final Group B game between England and West Indies, the side will now focus on unwinding and keeping their fingers crossed on Alyssa.
"We've got a couple of days now. I'm going to leave that in the hands of our doctors to get to work on her. I'll fingers crossed that they can, she can be available but we'll know more in the next couple of days and how that plays out."
"It's a little bit unknown for now, so first of all we'll really enjoy the fact that we've had a really good group stage. Maybe (we'll do) a bit of tourist stuff in Dubai over the next day or two and then we've got a job to do, so we'll get back to training, working out what ground we're playing at, what opposition we're playing," Tahlia said.