'Woohoo, let's go!' - Nicola Carey is a vibe for Mumbai Indians

Nicola Carey was a vibe on Saturday.

Fans in tier I of the South Wing A stand at the DY Patil Stadium wanted a selfie with her. Carey was at ground level just behind the Mumbai Indians (MI) dugout. "WPL wapas jitva do (Win us the WPL again)!" they cheered.

"Woohoo, let's go!" Carey screamed back after scoring 21 off 12 to hit a total of 195 against Delhi Capitals (DC), and then picking up three-for to help defend it.

Later, she walked into the press conference room, grinning and waving her hands at the journalists, before settling down behind the microphone. "Hello," she whispered into it, but speakers amplifying her voice caught her by surprise. "Oh! I was not expecting that," she said with a smile as she leant back into her chair.

Carey, 32, exuded the vibe of a player high on confidence, and that's showed in her on-field performances. She was Player of the Match for Northern Superchargers (now Sunrisers Leeds) at the women's Hundred final last year. She showcased her power-hitting skills with the bat and had a telling effect with the ball in Hobart Hurricanes' maiden title-win in the WBBL. And having been picked by MI at her base price at the auction, she has had two good all-round games for the defending champions.

Batting at No. 5 in each of MI's first two matches in WPL 2026, Carey scored 40 off 29 against Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), and 21 off 12 against DC. MI were struggling for momentum against RCB and Carey injected just that to get them to a par score. Against DC, she had the platform and capitalised on it with a breezy knock. In addition to all this, she also has five wickets in two outings, which included the two-in-an-over salvo that turned the game in MI's favour on Saturday.

None of this would have happened had Hayley Matthews been fit. Matthews is MI's preferred opener and Amelia Kerr their regular No. 5. But the West Indies' captain's absence meant Kerr was pushed to open and while she may have scores of 4 and 0 now, it is the position from which she scored her maiden T20 hundred for Wellington Blaze at the Women's Super Smash only 12 days ago.

Carey has experience squeezing into a line-up as an injury replacement and hitting the ground running. She was flown in late to step in for fellow Australian Georgia Wareham in the Hundred, and finished with the second-best strike-rate by a Superchargers batter in the competition (168 from four innings). It helped that MI head coach Lisa Keightley and spin-bowling coach Kristen Beams were the head coach and assistant coach respectively there.

"If you look at the other overseas players you've got in this line-up, they're world-class players," Carey said. "So I was under no illusions as to where I probably sat in that [pecking order]. I would just prepare how I would, if I was to go into a game anyway. So, nothing really changes in that space, and sometimes, it is last minute things where you're like, 'oh, you're in, or maybe you're not, like, just hold off a minute, see if someone's pulled up'. But that's just the nature of these competitions.

"I've spent plenty of time on the sidelines, so you just become used to it. That's what comes with a gig. If you're lucky enough to get on the field and get out there, it's a lot of fun.

Given her quality, Carey often made it to the national squad, but given Australia's all-round riches, she also rode the bench a lot. That meant very little game time, including missing guaranteed game time at domestic level. That made her take a tough call of declining a national contract in 2023 to focus on pre-season with Tasmania, her state side, and work on her skills. Such decisions have helped her level up as an allrounder.

For instance, the use of the reverse sweep against offspinners. When RCB and DC brought on Shreyanka Patil and Sneh Rana, respectively, to squeeze the left-hand batter, she found ways to transfer the pressure back onto the bowlers. She upped the tempo with the bat, despite hardly having played in India before.

Carey did not have a memorable start with the ball in the WPL, going for 20 in her opening over against RCB. But she then picked up two wickets in six balls, and then three against DC to top the wickets tally, alongside Kerr. Her returns over the last five months have not gone unnoticed, with former Australia captain and New South Wales' latest Hall of Fame inductee Alex Blackwell calling for Carey's return to the national side for the T20 World Cup in June.

"Oh, honestly, I actually haven't given it much thought. I've been really happy doing what I'm doing," Carey said of her Australia aspirations. "The reason I made that decision [declining the central contract] was to play more cricket and I've been lucky enough to do that. It has been really good for my game and it has been really enjoyable to get consistent game time back home in our domestic stuff. I was fortunate enough to get an opportunity to go to the Hundred as an injury replacement and I probably wouldn't be here if I didn't get that little opportunity there. It's wild to think of the little opportunities that I've been afforded in the last 12 months even."

Nothing can be as "wild" as what Carey did on March 8, 2020 when she won a T20 World Cup with Australia and then danced alongside Katy Perry in front of close to 90,000 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. She continues to vibe in that afterglow, tournament after tournament.