Healy calls for more Tests in 'white-ball dominant' schedule

Alyssa Healy says while she is disappointed to have lost the one-off Test at Wankhede, her overwhelming feeling is that of hunger for more red-ball cricket in India.

India’s eight-wicket win was their first against Australia in the format, in what was their first Test at home against the Aussies in almost 40 years.

Healy certainly does not want her team to have to wait another four decades for a crack at Indian conditions, and said she would happily have padded up for another Test – or two – on this tour.

"At the end of the day, (it was) a really enjoyable experience," Healy told reporters after the game.

"It was tough work. We knew it was going to be hard work coming over here in particular playing a one-off Test, there's no real time to learn to adapt, to find a style of play, so we knew it was going to be a tough ask but I'm really proud of our group and the fight that we showed."

The Australian captain said she would love to see a two or three-Test series played between India and Australia.

However, Healy was also pragmatic around how Tests currently fit into the women’s schedule, which is dominated by white-ball cricket, and which has ICC tournaments held almost annually.

"That's up to the BCCI and Cricket Australia as well to decide whether (multi-Test series are) on the cards or not," she said.

"Imagine playing two more of these? I think that would be an unbelievable experience for our group and probably a true test of both sides' abilities.

"I think the one-off Test match, India playing in their home conditions, you'd expect them to be heavy favourites and the way that I think we tried to adapt and continued to learn throughout the four days was really impressive.

"So we'd love to see more and more and I think it would create a real contest over three games, but the nature of the female game at the moment is it's very white-ball dominant and trying to get fit it all into the calendar, and fit all the white-ball games in particular, seems to take precedence."

Healy praised the performance of India, who backed up from a 347-run Test win over England last week to take out the game at Wankhede on the fourth and final day.

She also said she would learn plenty from her second Test in charge of Australia, ahead of the upcoming first-ever Test against South Africa, to be played at the WACA Ground in February.

"Their relentlessness with the ball was probably what stood out to me," she said.

"Their three spinners in particular I thought worked really, really well together and it made it really hard for us, I think at times it felt like we weren't scoring or the game was stagnated and we couldn't really throw a punch and get the scoring going again.

"They're obviously heavy favourites in their own conditions, they've grown up playing in these conditions and I think their batting was a lot different to us, but they're probably more comfortable playing some shots that we haven't grown up playing.

"In terms of the captaincy side of things, yeah I'm still coming to grips with it – I've only played seven Test matches, I think you wouldn't see too many captains sitting here that have played that little Test matches in the men's game.

"For all of us, we're still learning about the game - but in saying that, it is the simplest version of the game and it's a combination of all the other cricket that we've played.

"There are parts that you can take from the one-day game that we can put into the Test match arena ... it is what it is, and I'll continue to learn and grow as a leader."

While other Tests Australia have played across the last decade have formed part of multi-format points-based series also incorporating ODIs and T20Is, the BCCI determined this tour would be played with each format in isolation.

Healy said that would make it easier to brush off the Test defeat, knowing there was no four-point deficit to now make up across the upcoming white-ball games, but added the one-off nature of the Test left a strange feeling.

"I sit here disappointed that we couldn't win the Test match but at the end of the day when we weren’t playing for overall series points for a trophy, it does make it a little bit of a novelty in a sense," she said.

"And that's hard for me to sit here and say, because I want to play more Test cricket, so the fact that it sort of feels meaningless in a sense is really disappointing to me.

"We are disappointed that we couldn't get ourselves over the line but I'm really proud of the way that the girls continued to fight and continue to adapt to conditions as the game went on."

The Australian squad will spend Christmas Day together, before turning their attention to the upcoming three-game ODI series starting at Wankhede Stadium on December 28.

This is the first time Australia’s women have spent Christmas overseas since 2004 – coach Shelley Nitschke was notably part of that tour to India – and Healy said the group were looking forward to celebrating together.

"We'll push on to the white-ball formats, one that we're really comfortable at," she added.

"We were over here this time last year playing a T20 series, which went well for us but it was also a really hard fought series so we know we're up against it, India are flying at the moment and playing some really good cricket so the next six games are going to be really exciting."

Australia's CommBank Tour of India

December 21-24, Only Test: India win by eight wickets

December 28: First ODI, Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai

December 30: Second ODI, Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai

January 2: Third ODI, Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai

January 5: First T20I, DY Patil Stadium, Navi Mumbai

January 7: Second T20I, DY Patil Stadium, Navi Mumbai

January 9: Third T20I, DY Patil Stadium, Navi Mumbai

Australia squad: Alyssa Healy (c), Tahlia McGrath (vc), Darcie Brown, Lauren Cheatle (Test only), Heather Graham, Ashleigh Gardner, Kim Garth, Grace Harris (T20s only), Jess Jonassen, Alana King, Phoebe Litchfield, Beth Mooney, Ellyse Perry, Megan Schutt, Annabel Sutherland, Georgia Wareham

India Test squad: Harmanpreet Kaur (c), Smriti Mandhana (vc), Jemimah Rodrigues, Shafali Verma, Deepti Sharma, Yastika Bhatia (wk), Richa Ghosh (wk), Sneh Rana, Shubha Satheesh, Harleen Deol, Saika Ishaque, Renuka Singh Thakur, Titas Sadhu, Meghna Singh, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Pooja Vastrakar