Alyssa Healy is an Australian wicketkeeper-batter and one of the most decorated players in the history of women’s cricket.
An eight-time World Cup champion and former captain of the Australian national team, Healy announced her retirement from international cricket in January 2026, citing recurring injuries and what she described as mental fatigue after more than a decade and a half at the top of the sport.
Her farewell series against India, running from February into March 2026, marks the end of a career that includes eight World Cup titles across formats, an Australian captaincy, and Guinness World Record achievements that stand entirely on their own, independent of her marriage to fellow Australian cricketer Mitchell Starc, who has four ICC titles, bringing the couple’s combined tally to 12.
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Alyssa Healy Biography
She was born on March 24, 1990, on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia.
Cricket runs deep in her family: her father, Greg Healy, played first-class cricket for Queensland, and her uncle, Ian Healy, was a celebrated Australian Test wicketkeeper who once held the world record for the most Test dismissals.
Despite that family pedigree, Alyssa Healy has said in interviews that she showed little interest in cricket as a young child.
That changed after her family relocated from Queensland to Sydney, where she was required to choose a sport as part of her schooling and took up cricket at the junior club level.
Her interest grew quickly from there. Alyssa attended MLC School and Barker College.
In 2006, at 16 years old, she made headlines as the first girl to play in New South Wales’ private schools’ boys’ cricket competition, an early and defining sign of the competitive drive that would shape her career.
Career
Alyssa Healy made her senior domestic debut for the New South Wales Breakers at 17 during the 2007–08 season.
She spent her first two seasons primarily as a specialist batter and part-time wicketkeeper before taking on the gloves full-time, quickly establishing herself as one of the most prolific dismissal-makers in the Women’s National Cricket League, where she went on to win multiple domestic titles with the Breakers.
Healy made her international debut for Australia at 19 in February 2010 during the Rose Bowl series against New Zealand.
Her early international career was, by her own numbers, a gradual progression rather than an instant success story.
Across her first 80 T20Is, she averaged 17.44 with a strike rate of 112, while across her first 52 ODIs, she averaged 15.96.
It took years of development before she transformed into what ESPNcricinfo has described as one of the most destructive batters in the world game.
World Cup and Records
Over the course of her international career, Alyssa Healy won the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup six times in 2010, 2012, 2014, 2018, 2020, and 2023, along with the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup in the 50-over format twice, in 2013 and 2022.
Her eight World Cup titles make her one of the most decorated players in the sport’s history, regardless of gender. She also won four Women’s Ashes series against England.
She was named the ICC Women’s T20I Cricketer of the Year in both 2018 and 2019 and the ICC Women’s ODI Cricketer of the Year in 2019. Some of her individual performances rank among the most memorable in the women’s game.
In October 2019, she set a new world record for the highest individual score in a Women’s T20I, smashing an unbeaten 148 from just 61 balls against Sri Lanka, a record that still stood at the time of her retirement.
She was named Player of the Match in Australia’s 2020 T20 World Cup final victory over India at the MCG, delivering what has been called the defining innings of the match.
In April 2022, she produced arguably the signature performance of her career, scoring 170 in the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup final against England to lead Australia to the title in Christchurch.
The match-winning innings also helped earn her the Player of the Tournament award after she scored a record 509 runs during the competition, the most ever recorded in a single Women’s Cricket World Cup.
She followed that achievement by winning the One-Day Player of the Year award at the 2022 Australian Cricket Awards.
In 2025, during the Women’s Cricket World Cup, she scored back-to-back centuries, continuing to perform at an elite level well into her mid-thirties.
Healy also holds a Guinness World Record for the highest competitive catch of a cricket ball, catching one dropped from 82.5 meters on February 21, 2019, as part of a promotional campaign marking one year until the 2020 ICC Women’s T20 World Cup.
By the numbers, she finished her career holding the record for the most T20I dismissals by any player, male or female, in the format’s history.
Beyond international cricket, Alyssa Healy became one of the most recognizable figures in global women’s franchise cricket.
She represented the Sydney Sixers from the inaugural Women’s Big Bash League season in 2015–16, helping the club win back-to-back titles in 2017 and 2018 while forming a long-standing partnership with fellow Australian star Ellyse Perry that became central to the Sixers’ identity.
In November 2020, she scored the fourth-fastest century in WBBL history, reaching the milestone in just 49 balls on her way to 111 from 52 deliveries.
By 2025, she had scored more than 3,000 runs in the competition, cementing her status as one of the league’s all-time greats.
Healy also expanded her franchise career internationally, playing for the Northern Superchargers in England’s The Hundred and becoming captain of the UP Warriorz after being purchased for 70 lakh rupees in the inaugural Women’s Premier League auction in India in 2023.
She was ultimately ruled out of the 2025 WPL season following foot and knee surgery, injuries that contributed to the physical toll behind her eventual retirement decision.
Captaincy and Retirement
Healy was appointed Australia’s vice-captain in 2022 following Rachael Haynes’ retirement and became the seventh woman to captain Australia in a T20I when she stood in for Meg Lanning during a tour of India, a series Australia won 4–1.
She led the team through the 2023 Ashes in Lanning’s absence and was named Australia’s full-time captain following Lanning’s retirement in November 2023.
She also captained Australia to victory in the 2023 ICC Women’s T20 World Cup, defeating South Africa in the final.
The high point of her captaincy came during the 2025 Women’s Ashes, when Australia defeated England 16–0 in a dominant, undefeated multi-format campaign.
In January 2026, Healy announced on the Willow Talk podcast, where she is a regular panelist, that she would retire from international cricket following Australia’s home series against India in February and March 2026.
She explained that persistent injuries and the mentally draining nature of an increasingly demanding cricket calendar had led to the decision, saying candidly, “I’ve got to dive into the well, and the well is getting less and less full of water. It’s getting harder to dive back in there.”
She chose to skip the T20I leg of the India series to give her likely successor and the rest of the team time to prepare for the 2026 ICC Women’s T20 World Cup without her, describing it simply as “the right thing” to do for her teammates.
She continued to captain Australia during the ODI series and played her 11th and final Test in the day-night match against India in Perth in March 2026.
Sophie Molineux was subsequently appointed Australia’s new all-format captain.
Mitchell Starc’s Wife
Alyssa Healy and Mitchell Starc have known each other since childhood, having first met when they were both nine years old.
They both began their cricket journeys as wicketkeepers before Starc later transitioned into fast bowling.
The couple became engaged in 2015 and married on April 15, 2016. Together, they became the third married couple in cricket history to both represent their country at Test level.
Across their combined careers, they have won 12 ICC titles, eight for Alyssa and four for Mitchell, making them one of the most decorated couples in the sport’s history.
Starc’s brother, Brandon Starc, is an accomplished high jumper who has represented Australia at the Commonwealth Games.
The couple has supported one another throughout their careers, with Starc frequently attending Alyssa’s major milestones, and both have occasionally opted out of franchise competitions to prioritize spending time together as a family.