Ian Healy

Ian Andrew Healy (born 30 April 1964) is an Australian former international cricketer who played for Queensland domestically.

Healy and his family relocated 600 km north to the small town of Biloela in 1972, due to his father's transfer in his job as a bank manager.

Rod Marsh inspired Healy to take up wicket-keeping; he also played basketball, soccer, squash and rugby league.

He represented the Queensland under-11 team and later attended a clinic conducted by the touring Queensland cricketers.

The team's wicket-keeper John Maclean gave him some specialist coaching, which gave his junior career further impetus.

During his later years in the town, Healy played alongside adults, which accelerated his progress.

He then joined the Northern Suburbs club in Brisbane's grade competition in 1982.

The wicket-keeping position had proved a problem for Australia since the 1984 retirement of Healy's boyhood hero, Rod Marsh.

Wayne B. Phillips, Tim Zoehrer, Greg Dyer and Steve Rixon had all been tried with little success.

Australian selector Greg Chappell had watched Healy's progress in Queensland, and believed that he offered the lower-order batting stability and determined approach to the game that the Australian team was lacking.

By his own admission, Healy was overwhelmed by his sudden elevation and took some time to settle into the team.

The selectors persevered with him through the difficult Pakistan tour and the subsequent home series against the West Indies, even though Australia lost both series.

An improvement in the team's performances coincided with Healy's establishment as a Test-class player.

After three matches for the Queensland Colts as a specialist batsman, Healy made his first-class debut in 1986–87 as a replacement for the injured Peter Anderson.

However, Anderson remained the first choice as the state's wicketkeeper for the next eighteen months, during which time Healy managed only six first-class appearances.

A wicketkeeper and right-hand middle-order batsman, he first played international cricket in 1988, after six first-class games.

Over the next decade, Healy was a member of the side as it enjoyed a period of success.

By the time of his retirement, Healy held the world record for most Test dismissals by a wicket-keeper.

All of his four first-class centuries were scored in Test matches.

He averaged 21 while scoring at a rate of 83.8 runs per hundred balls.

He captained Australia in eight one day internationals when the regular skipper Mark Taylor was injured.

Born in the Brisbane suburb of Spring Hill, Healy was educated at Brisbane State High School.

Given his small number of games for Queensland, Healy's selection for the Australian team to tour Pakistan in late 1988 was a major surprise.

On the tour of England in 1989, he was safe behind the stumps in taking 14 Test catches, but averaged only 17.16 with the bat, as Australia won 4–0 to regain the Ashes.

In seven Tests against New Zealand, Sri Lanka and Pakistan during the extended season of 1989–90, Healy accepted 23 catches and recorded a top score of 48.

Healy twice captained an Australian XI, in tour matches against the West Indians in 1991–92 and 1992–93.

Although Australia lost the series with the West Indies and drew with New Zealand in 1992–93, the team had a successful tour of England in 1993 when Healy hit his maiden Test century.

His form had gradually improved, culminating in an unbeaten 102 at Old Trafford when he dominated a partnership with Steve Waugh.

With the introduction to the team of Shane Warne, Healy was able to demonstrate his skills standing up to the stumps and reading the varied deliveries of the spinner.

In his first 39 Tests, Healy stumped two batsmen.

In 14 Tests between 1992 and 1993, he stumped ten batsmen while taking 52 catches.

Healy followed up with another century, against New Zealand at Perth in 1993–94.

Healy was also well known for his energy and optimism behind the stumps, and could frequently be heard on effects microphones encouraging the rest of the team, perhaps most prominently praise of Shane Warne, expressed as 'bowling, Warnie'.

Notable too was his attitude to injuries; despite breaking all of his fingers during his thirteen-year career he only ever missed one Test match, replaced by Phil Emery in Pakistan.

In 1993, he led an official Australian team at the Hong Kong six-a-side tournament and replaced Allan Border as captain of Queensland in 1992–93.

However, when Border retired at the end of the 1994 tour of South Africa, Healy was not seen as viable successor as Australian captain for two reasons.

Firstly, only one wicket-keeper had led Australia in the previous one hundred years.

Secondly, his various on-field confrontations were sometimes held against him.

Australia made the much-debated decision to separate the teams for playing Tests and ODIs for the 1997–98 season.

Returning to Brisbane with his family at the age of 17 he played for Brisbane State High School 1st XI and 1st XV.