Alyssa Healy 'on track' in major boost for Aussies ahead of women's cricket Test

Australian cricket coach Shelley Nitschke has revealed Alyssa Healy is "on track" to play in the historic women's Test match against India, but isn't guaranteeing the captain's availability just yet. Australia will clash with India from Thursday in the first women's Test between the two nations in India since 1984.

Healy is recovering from a nasty injury she suffered in October when she was trying to break up a fight between the two dogs she owns with husband Mitchell Starc. The star wicket-keeper batter missed the whole WBBL season as a result, and is racing the clock to prove her fitness for the Test against India.

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On Monday, Nitschke provided an update on Healy - who was recently confirmed as Australia's new captain in all three formats following the international retirement of Meg Lanning. Nitschke said "everything's on track" but failed to lock in Healy's spot in the XI.

"She didn't keep in the 50-over [practice] game, but that's just part of her progression back to playing," the coach said. "Everything's looking really positive for 'Midge' (Healy) and everything's on track, as we expected, so fingers crossed for her it continues to go that way. All things being equal, we'll see her out there, unless there's some significant change."

India thrashed England by a record 347-run margin in their Test last week, and the Aussies are expecting spin to play a big role. India spinner Deepti Sharma starred with bat and ball against England, bagging nine wickets for the match.

"It was interesting to watch," Nitschke said. "The conditions out there at DY (Stadium) certainly made it quite challenging. I think it's just about reading the conditions at Wankede Stadium, but we also know that things could get quite challenging, but just making sure that we're well prepared for that."

Healy was in charge when Australia last played a Test match in June, in which the Aussies beat England in the women's Ashes. She has filled in numerous times for Lanning over the last two years as the former skipper took breaks from the game for personal reasons.

Alyssa Healy and Mitchell Starc open up on incident with dogs

Last month Healy opened up on the "gory" finger injury she sustained at the hands of her staffordshire terriers Misty and Millie. "They were having a bit of a rough and tumble,” she explained. “It got a little bit more than that, and I unfortunately got my hand in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“My right index finger took a bit of a battering. That’s basically all there is to it. It’s not all that exciting. There doesn’t need to be any more detail than that. It was quite gory."

Starc wasn't home at the time as he was India for the ODI World Cup. The Aussie paceman said Healy rang to inform him what had happened, but he missed the call.

“She didn’t get attacked by the dog. So let’s just change that narrative,” Starc told The Australian. “She doesn’t normally ring me anyway, so I missed the call and the message was ‘Call dad if you need me, on the way to hospital.’ Okay. Cool. Yeah, it was an interesting 48 hours. All sort of worked out. She’s on the mend. And on track, but yeah, it was interesting.”

Speaking earlier this month, Healy said she was happy to have some certainty around the captaincy after Lanning's absences. "We wanted Meg to come back and we wanted Meg to lead the side," she said.

"But it was just sort of filling in while we could and also probably living series-to-series, which we identified that's not probably doing us any favours. We actually need to look long term and work towards World Cups and work towards big series and tournaments."

with AAP

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