Alyssa Healy reveals she had considered quitting cricket before top-order reinvention

Things panned out differently, though, as Healy overcame her misgivings to reinvent herself. She has now been in the form of her life over the last two years. Since October 2017, she has scored over 1000 runs in both the white-ball formats. She was named player of the tournament after Australia's victorious 2018 ICC Women's T20 World Cup campaign. In October last year, she smashed the highest individual score in women's T20Is, a 61-ball 148* against Sri Lanka. She was also named the ICC Women's T20I Cricketer of the Year in 2019.

"I remember having this discussion with [national selector] Shawn Flegler … it wasn't necessarily that I felt like I was at a crossroads, but I could have easily walked away from the game and been happy with what I'd done and that I'd contributed to successful teams," Healy told cricket.com.au.

Healy, 29, disclosed that she was 'frustrated' with her cricket and wanted assurances that she was doing the right thing by continuing to play.

"I probably would have been 26, 27 at the time, so it wasn't so long ago," she said. "I think I was probably just frustrated with my cricket and didn't really know what more I could achieve or what more I could do to better myself or my cricket.

"You come in at such a young age and you play for a long period of time, so you're not sure where the end is and you feel like you can walk away and do something else with your life while you're still young.

"I'm not sure [what convinced me to continue] to be fair, I think Flegs reassured me that I was doing the right thing for the team and I was doing my job, and that if I kept doing that, then some more opportunities might open up."

The flamboyant batter said that her team's faith in her and the confidence to bat at the top of the order helped her gain new perspective. Batting regularly at the top, Healy said, changed her approach towards the game.

"Being given that opportunity to bat at the top of the order in that Ashes series [in 2017] is something that probably changed my game and changed my approach to the game and got me really rejuvenated about my cricket," she said. "We wanted to put the opposition on the back foot early, and when Motty [head coach Matthew Mott] approached me to do that job for the team in the Ashes series, it was a nod from me.

"For me, that was probably the flick of the switch I needed to work a bit harder to make sure I maintained that spot. I'm grateful that that happened. I'm definitely still enjoying my cricket and we'll see where it goes."