Captain Midge making her World Cup team 'happy campers'
The perfectionist in Alyssa Healy meant Australia's wicketkeeping skipper still couldn't be completely satisfied with brilliant back-to-back World Cup centuries when she was so annoyed with herself for her own sub-par performance behind the stumps.
But to her teammates, the sight of their diminutive and inspirational captain 'Midge' bludgeoning two consecutive tons on the biggest stage, just as she did in the semi-final and final in New Zealand back in the victorious 2022 World Cup campaign, made them all feel like "happy campers".
The champions' so far unbeaten defence of their crown in India and Sri Lanka just appears to be getting stronger by the match, with the 10-wicket crushing of Bangladesh on Thursday, courtesy of Healy's unbeaten 202-run opening stand with Phoebe Litchfield, guaranteeing their spot in another semi-final.
And it left the 35-year-old's team with that warm, reassuring feeling that when the skipper is firing on all cylinders at the top of the order, all's well with their world.
"It was just incredible to see what she's done," said Alana King, who delivered a pretty remarkable performance of her own with 2-18 off 10 brilliant overs of leg-spin which included four maidens.
"First of all, for Midge to do it against India in India on Sunday was massive, and she was pretty bloody determined to do so. But then to not let the foot off the throat and do it again tonight, I guess just shows where her mindset's at.
"Pretty pumped for Midge to hit back-to-back hundreds and it's also great to see Phoebe's amongst the runs as well. I know she's pretty hard on herself, but I think tonight's going to do her a world of good, and there's no doubt we've got some pretty happy campers in our team at the moment."
Healy admitted she felt she had something to make up for when she went in to bat after having dropped a couple of chances among the six her team spilled when Bangladesh battled to 9-198.
She also felt her captaincy could have been better, perhaps scolding herself in particular for the moment when she failed to review a strong caught-behind shout that was turned down, wrongly as replays showed, by the umpire.
Still, her unbeaten 113, which featured 80 scintillating runs in boundaries, felt like handsome recompense as she went past 7000 career runs in all international cricket.
"To chase a total like that with none down, it's going to give a whole lot of confidence to the whole batting line-up," King suggested.
As for the fielding lapses, there'll definitely be a review. "I would say a lot of those catches that went down were quite tough," shrugged King.
"But we've got two pretty big games coming up against England and South Africa, so we know every chance that goes up, we'll need to grab."
Their semi-final spot now booked, there's no chance of the demanding Healy easing off the intensity. Australia won in 2022 with nine wins out of nine, and that's another repeat she fancies.
"We pride ourselves on our professionalism and being clinical in big tournaments," she said. "Foot on the throat from us at the back end of this tournament."
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