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. 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.