Australia’s pugnacious wicketkeeper-batswoman Alyssa Healy has another claim for bragging rights in her famous cricketing family after starring in her team’s fifth Women’s T20 World Cup triumph on Sunday.

Opener Alyssa led from the front with a brilliant 39-ball 75 as Meg Lanning’s Australia roared to an 85-run win on International Women’s Day.

Her husband Mitchell Starc, fast bowler for the Australian men’s team, was among the thrilled fans, having come home early from the tour of South Africa to watch his wife hammer the Indian bowlers.

Five years ago at the same venue, Starc bowled New Zealand’s hard-hitting captain Brendon McCullum for a duck in the final of the ODI World Cup to set Australia on the path to a dominant win in front of 93,000 fans.

Alyssa’s uncle Ian Healy, who kept wicket for Australia and is third on the all-time list for total dismissals in Test cricket, would have beamed in pride when his niece snaffled an edge to remove India’s 16-year-old prodigy Shafali Verma for two.

Asked who had the upper hand now in the family, Alyssa wasted no time in responding. “One hundred percent me,” she told reporters, beaming.

“I’ve been a part of a lot of successful World Cup campaigns now, but to do it here on home soil was always going to be incredibly difficult to do.

“I guess Mitch and I are 1-1 on that stage.”

Houseful at MCG

Women’s cricket changed forever on Sunday as a record 86,174 fans checked into the iconic Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) to watch India take on Australia in the final of T20 World Cup.

The highly-anticipated occasion lived up to its billing by setting a new attendance record not just for a women’s sporting event in Australia, but for women’s cricket globally.

In the six previous editions of the tournament, the highest final crowd came in 2009 when 12,717 watched England beat New Zealand in Sydney. And seeing 73,000 more turn up in Melbourne for the same event 11 years later is a true testament to how far the game has come, the ICC said in a statement.

“I never thought I’d be playing in front of a crowd like this,” said Australia’s Ashleigh Gardner. “It was amazing to have all those people before us.”

What the match had achieved was apparent before the stadium gates had opened as fans streamed into Melbourne Park in their hundreds up to seven hours before the first ball was bowled.