Rain cuts into Healy's prep as Filer slips and slides
It denied Healy a chance to test her readiness with the gloves after she had played the NZ series late last year only as a batter
Andrew McGlashan09-Jan-2025
Match abandonedAlyssa Healy was prevented from testing herself in the middle with the wicketkeeping gloves as the Governor-General match against England was abandoned after less than 29 overs due to rain in Sydney, while quick bowler Lauren Filer endured a difficult start to her Ashes tour with the ball as she repeatedly lost her footing in delivery.Australia captain Healy was using this match to test her readiness to return with the gloves after playing as a batter only against New Zealand late last year, but was only able to have a hit as she made a crisp 38 in a rapid opening stand of 91 with Georgia Voll who again impressed with a 38-ball half-century.After the game had been called off due to frequent stoppages, Healy had a 20-minute keeping session on the outfield with Australia’s coaching staff ahead of Sunday’s first ODI.Related
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Rain delayed the start after the toss had taken place and when play did begin, Filer struggled to keep her footing from the Scoreboard End and slipped four times before rain took the players off again.On resumption, Filer did not complete her opening over with Nat Sciver-Brunt bowling the final delivery. Filer later returned from the Fig Tree End but again kept slipping over in her delivery stride and finished with figures of 2.5-0-33-0.However, England coach Jon Lewis was not overly concerned by Filer’s difficulties saying it was something she often did at training as she powered through the crease and that the damp conditions made it additionally challenging.”It’s a very similar thing to what Mark Wood does,” Lewis said. “When your front foot lands, you are trying to get your front leg and to do that you pull your leg back…so if there’s nothing for you to grip against when you pull your leg then you tumble. It was little bit greasy out there so wasn’t ideal for her, but we hope the wicket on Sunday will be a little less grassy and a bit drier.”Lauren Filer lost her footing a number of times in her delivery stride•Getty Images
While groundstaff were working on the take-off area during Filer’s opening over there was a lengthy chat between the England players at the umpires and Lewis conceded conditions had not been ideal.”There’s always a risk when it’s a little bit wet,” he said. “Was I uncomfortable, probably not, was I comfortable probably somewhere in the middle between the two things. Again, it was important to try and get some overs into our bowlers in this game.”Lewis was confident Filer wouldn’t be affected by the struggles of her first bowl in the middle on a tour where her pace had been viewed as providing a cutting edge to England’s attack”She’s pretty confident with where she’s at,” Lewis said. “She bowled well down pace there for what she would normally bowl because it was quite hard to stand up. When you are a bowler and it’s hard to stand up it’s not easy to put the ball where you want it because you are running in at 20kph an hour and trying to land a ball in a really small space.”Whether Filer plays the opening ODI may come down to the fitness of Kate Cross, who didn’t featured in the warm-up game and instead bowled out at Cricket Central, following the back spasms that curtailed her tour of South Africa. Lewis said they would have a clearer picture of her availability in the next couple of days and also played down the significance of the warm-up match being truncated.”We’d have liked to have played more cricket, [but] we can’t control the weather,” he said. “We’ll front up on Sunday, the players are ready, we’ve played a lot of cricket over the last four or five months since the World Cup, through South Africa…so they’ve come here and it feels like they’ve hit the ground running so we feel like we’re in a pretty good space.”The forecast for the next couple of days in Sydney is for further showers which may impact the preparations of both sides.