Cricketer Alyssa Healy can’t pinpoint the exact moment she fell in love with the sport that would later become her profession, but she does have a friend to thank for encouraging her to pick up a bat.

“I started playing when I was seven,” she tells Future Women. “And I was a very reluctant cricketer. A friend from school took me down to try it, and I never wanted to play. Obviously my family play heavily and it didn’t really interest me that much. But I think once I learned the game, and once I started playing, and I had some friends in the game, I sort of fell in love with it from there.”