Women's World Cup: 'Lot Of Fun Watching Healy Bat', Says Rachael Haynes

Veteran Australia opener Rachael Haynes on Sunday said it was great fun to see Alyssa Healy's magnificent 170 and added that it took some pressure off from her.

Pushed into batting first, Haynes and Healy had to be patient as England got the ball to swing around, with the power-play yielding only 37 runs. But after that, Haynes opened up, followed by Healy to put an opening stand of 169 in 29 overs. Though Haynes fell for 68, Healy marched on to leave the cricketing world in awe with one of the finest knocks ever seen in the 50-over format.

"It's a lot of fun watching Healy bat, and it takes the pressure off me, she was phenomenal. It's one of the best knocks I've ever seen and she saved it for the big occasion," said Haynes after the match.

Haynes finished the tournament as the second-highest run-scorer in the tournament, making 497 runs at an average of 62.12 and strike rate of 82.55, including a century against England in the league stage apart from three half-centuries.

"Nice to contribute and get some runs, to start of well and the nature of this tournament is such with back to back games that you can get on a roll. Nice to make a decent contribution and get the win tonight," stated Haynes.

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Haynes, 35, admitted that Australia making a shock exit from the 2017 ODI World Cup semi-finals did spur them to reinvent themselves as a unit. "A bit of a crucible moment for our group (2017), it didn't go as per plan. And it was a big moment for us, to understand our roles and dealing with pressure, to build on that. To have such a consistent game out in this tournament for a long period of time has been really special."