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The beautiful love story behind the 'First Couple' of Australian cricket.

A sporting power couple. The First Couple of Australian cricket. Cricket’s most powerful partnership. They’re the kind of labels that tend to be thrown at Alyssa Healy and Mitchell Starc.

Little wonder, really. The 27-year-olds are the first married couple to play test cricket for Australia, have both starred in Ashes-winning teams, and have both represented their country in a World Cup squad.

But strip away all the green and gold and they’re just husband and wife, “best friends”, childhood sweethearts.

The pair met when they were just nine years old, while facing off in Sydney’s Northern District Junior Cricket Association. A year later they found themselves on the same side, in the same position, sharing wicket-keeping duties in a representative team coached by Starc’s father, Paul.

“I took a bit of a liking to the little blonde keeper,” the fast-bowler told News Corp in 2013. “I had a little thing for her for a long time. She was obviously pretty talented, she could match it with the boys.”

Friends and teammates throughout their teen years, by 2010 it had become clear there was something more between them.

“Just before his first Australian tour to India we had a two to three-week period where we pretty much hung out every day,” Healy said. “Just before he flew out we questioned what was going on and whether this [relationship] was actually happening. We kind of just fell into it, being friends for a period of time before that. It just happened.”

They married in April 2016.

Marry your best friend ✅ #stealy @mstarc56

A post shared by Alyssa Healy (@a_healy) on

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While Healy humbly deflects the power couple tag, she says she’s fortunate to have a partner in first-class cricket, someone who appreciates the effort it takes to stay at the top.

“Cricket is a really fickle sport in that you can be on top of the world one day and get out for a first ball duck the next day, so we’re both lucky in that we can understand what one another are going through and we can handle it,” the Women’s Big Bash League star told Body+Soul earlier this year.

“We both love playing cricket and have done since we were kids so be able to share one another’s success on the cricket field is pretty special.”

You can catch Alyssa playing for the Sydney Sixes this summer. If you can’t make it make it to a game, you can watch every WBBL match streamed LIVE right here on Mamamia.