<\/p>\n
S<\/span>ometimes, those behind-the-scenes cameras show more than they know. In a silent Australian dressing room in 2019, the players were staring at the indeterminate middle-distance like commuters on a train. Eventually, the one raised voice belonged to Alyssa Healy.<\/p>\n This was the last day of the Ashes Test at Taunton, where Australia had to decide whether to offer England a chase in an attempt to win, or bat the game to death. Criticised afterwards for choosing the latter, coach Matthew Mott and captain Meg Lanning adopted thin-lipped Australian sternness to insist that an England team trailing in a multi-format series didn\u2019t deserve to be offered a path back.<\/p>\n In the documentary footage shown later, with Mott and Lanning laying out their reasoning and asking if everyone agreed, it was not a forum set up for dissent. But the issue was less about offering England a chance and more about Australia creating one for themselves, however unlikely. When Healy spoke up, she probably wasn\u2019t thinking of the long-term implications of a compelling finish as an argument to administrators to schedule more women\u2019s Tests. She was thinking like a competitor, wanting to have a crack at England with the ball.<\/p>\n She didn\u2019t deliver a stirring monologue that got everybody on board: nobody backed her and the issue was dropped. But it was notable that Healy at least felt compelled to speak, and able to. Nothing changed that day, but it has changed since, from when Lanning retired in 2023 until Healy followed suit last weekend.<\/p>\n