The dreaded pair – and indeed any duck – is a greater occupational risk for opening batters than their middle order counterparts.
Faced with the freshest opening bowlers, new ball and juiciest wickets, sometimes these specialists are back in their training gear before the bowlers have finished breakfast.
Because of this, the statistical benchmarks for considering excellence in specialist openers – average and number of hundreds, for example – are generally accepted to be a little lower than the middle order.
The same is true of wicket keepers – they typically find themselves either trying to rescue a top-order collapse or escalate a run-rate and progress the game, often after keeping for hundreds of overs.
In Test cricket, of course, Alyssa Healy does both – just as she does in ODI and T20 cricket. She is not historically alone in these dual endeavours, but those who have done both are certainly in the minority and none have done it successfully for very long.
She has made plain her desire to take on the workload, saying ahead of the Test:
“Hopefully, we get the full four days in and I’m out there for all four days. I look forward to that challenge and test my body, physically and mentally. The chats are being had but at this point in time, considering it’s such a one-off event for us, I want to be involved as much as I can.”
Her desire to be involved is echoed in many an athlete’s generic media platitudes, but for Healy and her teammates this sentiment is more substantial – in 11 years, she has played six Tests. For reference, the men’s team has played 109 since her debut.
With just one Test every other year to look forward to, the desire to take part and contribute – in other words, not miss out – must be immense. She already has one DNB to her name, when she was not required in the second innings of her debut Test as Australia chased 198 to beat England at Bankstown Oval, and is understandably keen to avoid any more.
On one hand, Healy opening does makes sense: with no long-format domestic competition for women in Australia, the experience of opening in white ball cricket can be considered more valuable than, well, no experience of opening at all.
But anyone who follows cricket knows that Test cricket has not seen anything close to Healy’s immense talent with the bat yet – and it deserves to.
It’s impossible to use a sample of just six Tests to draw any kind of meaningful statistical conclusions, but she has now opened in exactly half her matches, making 58, 13, 29, 6, 0 and 0 (average 17.66). In the middle and lower order, she has made 37, 39, 9 and 45 (average 32.5).
These figures don’t show that she can’t open, but that she shouldn’t. The guarantee of participation opening the batting, however enticing that is to the player herself, is outweighed by all the other factors against it.
More importantly, she deserves to take a place in the team that supports her to achieve her goals and fulfil her talent. The game is far richer for her making runs than not.
Unsurprisingly, this means a move to the more traditional wicketkeeper’s position at seven. Healy’s early departures meant Beth Mooney essentially opened this Test, and made runs doing so.
Shifting everyone up one position benefits the lineup in more ways, too – it puts Ellyse Perry at three, the traditional home of the best batter in an Australian team, and places more responsibility on both Ashleigh Gardner and Tahlia McGrath, whose performances over this Summer in international and WBBL cricket have been awe-inspiring.
Healy is easily good enough to bat at six, too, and such is the depth of all-rounders in the side that she can perhaps switch between them based on the match situation.
The Manuka Test could have taken on a rather different complexion if Meg Lanning could have sent Healy, whose strike rate is 101.69 in ODIs and 129.69 in T20Is, out to escalate the run rate.
Of course, there is one glaring issue with all of this conjecture. Unlike the men’s Ashes, in which we were force-fed low-quality Test after low-quality Test with barely a breath between, the next Test for the Australian women is, well, who knows when? Beyond the World Cup there are no fixtures available.
It will be of little consolation to her that the ignominy of her pair contributed to the fantastic drama of the recently concluded Test at Manuka Oval. In a roundabout way, this contributed to the growing public support for more women’s Tests than ever before.
Two Tests in one Summer is progress in itself, but not enough. Hopefully it is just a matter of time before Healy and her teammates take part in a fully-fledged Test series; when it comes, she can reflect on this substantial silver lining as she waits to bat down the order.
Clear as mud
Guest
Numbers don’t exaggerate. My eyes see what they see. It’s the second time in three “home seasons” that her form has gone completely to the toilet. And her keeping is loose.
JamesH
Roar Guru
Lol I’m not going to get into a debate about the four seasons. In this context ‘the summer’ generally refers to the home cricket season, which often includes Oct/Nov and even March. Ignoring that just undermines your point. The technical summer is only about 9 weeks in, and she didn’t play any cricket for half of that anyway. Im not suggesting she’s in good form. I’m saying you’re exaggerating how out of form she. Even her 27 in the first ODI on a tricky pitch for scoring (at a better strike rate than most) showed she’s not ‘chronically’ out of touch. She needs runs for her confidence, but it’s not as if she can’t hit the ball off the square.
Clear as mud
Guest
You can’t tell a geographer that spring is really summer. 113 at 11.3 in last 10 digs since 13 Nov with almost half of that in one innings, and 4 ducks. There is no formline . There is no form.
JamesH
Roar Guru
The decision to play at them probably doesn't have anything to do with technique. She's plied her trade as an aggressive, bat-on-ball cricketer, which works well as an opener in limited overs cricket. I just don't think she plays enough long form cricket at a high level to train herself out of those instincts.
JamesH
Roar Guru
India was still part of the cricketing summer. The problem, as I pointed out, is how spaced out her innings were. Played over the best part of three months, across three different formats and three different competitions. It's not as simple as you make it to track a form line, at least compared to mens' cricket where they're batting every few days. Go back a couple of innings further and she hit a BBL ton.
Clear as mud
Guest
Check her last 10-12 innings. One 50 and about 80% single digits. India was spring.
DaveJ
Roar Rookie
Low quality Test after low quality Test?? That’s taking it way too far. They might not have been close, though Sydney had some excitement, but there was plenty of good cricket. Lots of relatively scoring as the pitches were at their liveliest since 1955. With some great seam bowling by the Australians. Some of the women’s batting has some nice techniques but the fours often wouldnt reach the men’s boundary. The “pace” bowlers are a few kph above Lyon’s fast ball, though a couple like Brunt showed some nice swing bowling. The standard of close-in catching is pretty ordinary. For standard of cricket the gap is light years, and no question of what is better to watch. And who knows whether the next women’s Tests will be as close?
Paul
Roar Guru
I wasn't sure if it was a temperament or technique issue with Healy. Brunt's movement is almost out of the hand which begs the question, why is she playing at deliveries that start wide and move wider through the air? If she feels she has no choice but to play them, then sure, bat her at 7, but if she can make a change to her technique and simply leave these deliveries alone, she could still open.
JamesH
Roar Guru
I'm not convinced she's got the temperament to open. It might just be a product of a lack of red ball cricket, but the pushes hard at moving deliveries outside off stump. She's become Brunt's bunny. To me, Mooney seems a far more logical choice to open. Healy at 6 or 7 could be far more destructive.
JamesH
Roar Guru
"Chronically out of batting form all summer' might be a stretch. She scored 383 runs at a tick under 30 and a SR of 155 in the WBBL, and her ODI returns vs India before that were 77, 0 and 35. She also has a half century from two knocks in the domestic 50 over comp. Her T20I and test returns against India and England were underwhelming but we're talking about 7 innings across two very different formats in the space of four months. It's difficult to track a form line through such intermittent cricket. Hopefully the upcoming ODIs - by far her best suit - tell us a bit more.
Liam Fallon
Roar Rookie
Mooney to keep and still bat at three? Same lessons apply - think the selectors would rather keep Mooney batting at three successfully than give her the gloves and shift her down, or at least I would. And still need an opener!
Paul
Roar Guru
I applaud her desire to part a part of every minute of the Tests she does play, but that's not necessarily helping the team, as you've pointed out. I'd have thought selectors need to re-think how she plays, given she's not 21 any more and the cricket she does play, must be taking a toll on her body. Maybe batting down the list is an option or maybe opening but not keeping is another choice.
JOHN ALLAN
Guest
Mooney to keep & Healy to be replaced by someone in form however Alyssa is a favourite of the selectors hence will not be dropped.
Clear as mud
Guest
Big Midge fan and she is great people, but (a) I don’t think she is the best keeper in the squad let alone the country; and (b) she has been chronically out of batting form all summer - possibly due to the chronic injury, or maybe it’s just another 2019-20 slump. Her numbers are risible this summer. It begs the question what you have to do to get dropped.