The matchwinner: Healy saved her best for the big moments

Healy's innings was the centrepiece of one of the most significant moments in cricket history. The Women's T20 World Cup final at the MCG was a raging success before a ball was bowled - with 86,174 in attendance and global pop star Katy Perry delivering a dazzling pre-game concert. But any thought that the pop star was the main attraction was quickly forgotten as Healy lofted the first ball wide of mid-on for four to begin one of the most defining innings in the history of the women's game. It was an eventful first over as Healy clubbed two more fours and was dropped by Shafali Verma. Thereafter, Healy produced an unrivalled display of ball-striking. She hit seven fours and five sixes in her innings, including three sixes in a row off Shikha Pandey. She fell for 75 off 39 balls with 8.2 overs left in the innings, but departed to a richly deserved standing ovation.

Just to prove Melbourne 2020 wasn't a once off, Healy delivered her finest ODI innings in a World Cup final. Fresh off a century in the semi-final, she joined Ricky Ponting and Mahela Jayawardene in becoming the third player to score two hundreds in the knockout phase of an ODI World Cup. Her stunning 170 helped Australia to the ODI title that had eluded them in 2017. The fifty came in 62 deliveries and her hundred arrived at exactly a run a ball. Then it really got wild. Off her next 38 balls Healy would chalk up another 70 runs. Healy's penultimate four took her to 500 runs in the tournament (with 299 coming in her last two innings) and there was anticipation of a double-century before she was finally out, stumped by Amy Jones. Healy's innings remains the highest score in a World Cup final, women's or men's, passing Adam Gilchrist's 149 against Sri Lanka in 2007.

Healy's 170 in the final came off the back of scoring 129 in the semi-final just days earlier. Any concerns of a repeat of the 2017 semi-final loss were quickly dismissed as Healy and Rachael Haynes plundered an opening stand of 216 in just 32.4 overs. Healy was calculated: her first fifty runs came off 63 balls while her second came from just 28 and she finished with 17 fours and a six. There was some luck with Chinelle Henry spilling a difficult return catch on 5, but her trademark ball-striking came to the fore as she was the dominant partner in the match-winning stand that put Australia into a seventh World Cup final.

No team in women's ODI history had chased more than 302. Australia were asked to chase 331 in a World Cup game against India in India. Once again, when the lights were brightest and the pressure was at it's highest, Healy delivered to break more records. After 50 overs of keeping and captaining as India piled up a massive score, she walked out unflustered and smashed 142 in 107 balls as Australia won with three wickets in hand and an over to spare. It was her first ODI century since the 2022 World Cup final. She admitted afterwards that it had come out of nowhere given her run of form and injury issues leading in.

"If you've been watching me in the nets, it's been a frustrating experience because I feel like I've had no rhythm whatsoever, been struggling to find it, and I didn't really know where it went before I came into the World Cup," she said. "But I think once you step out on the field, your competitive instincts kick in and you kind of just lock-in to getting in the contest."

Not one to waste a run of form, Healy returned to the same venue four days later and smashed her fourth World Cup century to set more records. Her 113 not out from 77 balls against Bangladesh was part of an unbroken stand of 202 with opening partner Phoebe Litchfield to help Australia cruise to a 10-wicket win in just 24.5 overs. It was the highest successful run chase without losing a wicket at a Women's World Cup and the second-highest in women's ODIs. Her fourth ODI century saw her move past Meg Lanning and Karen Rolton with the most for Australia's women in World Cups. Only England's Nat Sciver-Brunt has more in the women's game.

How many records can one person have? In 2019, Healy turned her first T20I century into the highest women's T20I score at the time, posting 148 not out off just 61 balls against Sri Lanka at North Sydney Oval. It eclipsed Lanning's record that had been set at Chelmsford just months earlier. Although the score has been overtaken, Healy's mark is still the highest T20I score among Full Member nations. It also remains the second fastest women's T20I century off just 46 balls. She survived two half chances early in her innings when she was missed at deep cover in the second over and then from a tough leg-side stumping in the fourth. But thereafter she dominated, striking 19 fours and seven sixes.

Unfortunately, Healy fell one run short of joining an exclusive club of century-makers across all three forms. She would have been the first Australian women to do it before Beth Mooney achieved the feat in 2025. She looked set to get there against South Africa at the WACA, cruising to 99 from 123 deliveries after Australia had slumped to 12 for 3. But a gentle non-spinning off-break from Delmi Tucker brought about her downfall. She tried to drive to long-on and got a leading edge that popped back to the bowler for an easy return catch. In a cruel twist of fate, her highest Test score matched that of her husband Mitchell Starc, who fell for 99 in a Test in India in 2013.

"I think he said 'if there's anything that I can remotely relate to in our cricketing careers, it was yesterday', so I guess that didn't help me one bit," Healy said following morning. "It is a bizarre thing. I wish it wasn't us. I wish it was another married couple, but that's okay." Barring injury, Healy does have the chance to surpass her highest Test score in what will be her final match, against India at the WACA, in March.

Arguably Healy's most important Test innings came a year earlier in a match that helped retain the Ashes in England. Having fell for a second-ball duck to Sophie Ecclestone in the first innings, Healy entered on a spinning wicket at Trent Bridge with Australia only 205 in front with five wickets in hand as they tried to stretch the fourth-innings target as far as they could. That lead only reached 208 when Australia lost Ashleigh Gardner and Annabel Sutherland with Ecclestone claiming her eighth wicket for the match. Healy shepherded the tail, adding 59 with Alana King and scoring 50 of them herself from 62 balls before falling to Ecclestone. Australia would eventually set England 268 to win and it proved too many as Gardner bagged eight wickets to seal an 89-run win.

It is an innings that may be long forgotten among the many great performances of Healy's career, but it was her first break-out performance as an opener in T20I cricket and laid the foundation for what was to come in a World Cup final eight years later. Having started her career in 2010, her first 20 T20Is had been spent down the order. She had one chance at No. 3 and another at No. 4 while the rest she had batted at No. 6 or below with a highest score of 28 not out. In February of 2012 she got her first opportunity to open and showed a glimpse of her capabilities with 30 off 27 against New Zealand. In her next innings she showcased the future. On a tough pitch in Visakhapatnam, she smashed 90 off 61 balls with 10 fours and two sixes. Not one other player in the game struck at more than 100, including her opening partner Lanning who made 42 off 44 in their 112-run opening stand. Healy scored 90 of Australia's total of 152 for 2 having been run out off the last ball of the innings. India managed just 88 for 6 from their 20 overs in reply.

India will always be a special place for Healy as it was the site of her first international century in 2018. After the statement T20I innings in 2012, Healy took a long time to produce something of that ilk in ODI cricket. It took until her 58th match, and 136th international overall, to do so. Having just made her maiden WBBL century only a couple of months earlier, she broke through at international level with a 115-ball 133 in the third ODI to cement a 3-0 sweep against the side that had knocked them out of the ODI World Cup the previous year. Healy started off scratchily - she gave a life on 23 and another later on 125 - but in between times she feasted on a familiar India attack that she would torment for years to come, thumping 17 fours and two sixes.

"It was a big feeling of relief, I guess," Healy said. "Played a lot of cricket to not have one [century]. Pretty excited to sit here with finally a hundred under my belt. And hopefully get a couple more before I pull up stumps."