Ian Andrew Healy AO is an Australian former international cricketer who played for Queensland domestically. A wicketkeeper and right-hand middle-order batsman, he first played international cricket in 1988, after six first-class games. Over the next decade, Healy was a member of the side as it enjoyed a period of success. By the time of his retirement, Healy held the world record for most Test dismissals by a wicket-keeper.

For ten years, Ian Healy was the pulse of the Australian team. From his shock selection and humbling beginning in Pakistan in 1988/89, he worked and willed himself to become the most successful wicketkeeper of them all. He prided himself on his total involvement, in training, in team meetings, in slashing and hooking vital runs regularly, in keeping expertly to the quicks, but his signature will always be his work standing over the stumps to Shane Warne, which elevated a prosaic business into a breathtaking spectacle.

Born in the Brisbane suburb of Spring Hill, Healy was educated at Brisbane State High School. Healy and his family relocated 600 kilometres (370 mi) north to the small town of Biloela in 1972, due to his father's transfer in his job. He represented the Queensland under-11 team and later attended a clinic conducted by the touring Queensland cricketers. During his later years in the town, Healy played alongside adults, which accelerated his progress. Returning to Brisbane with his family at the age of 17 he played for Brisbane State High School 1st XI and 1st XV. He then joined the Northern Suburbs club in Brisbane's grade competition in 1982. After three matches for the Queensland Colts as a specialist batsman, Healy made his first-class debut for Queensland in 1986/87 as a replacement for the injured Peter Anderson

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. By his own admission, Healy was overwhelmed by his sudden elevation and took some time to settle into the team. The selectors persevered with him through the difficult Pakistan tour and the subsequent home series against the West Indies, even though Australia lost both series.

An improvement in the team's performances coincided with Healy's establishment as a Test-class player. On the tour of England in 1989, he was safe behind the stumps in taking 14 Test catches, but averaged only 17.16 with the bat, as Australia won 4–0 to regain the Ashes. In seven Tests against New Zealand, Sri Lanka and Pakistan during the extended season of 1989/90, Healy accepted 23 catches and recorded a top score of 48.

Although Australia lost the series with the West Indies and drew with New Zealand in 1992/93, the team had a successful tour of England in 1993 when Healy hit his maiden Test century. His form had gradually improved, culminating in an unbeaten 102 at Old Trafford when he dominated a partnership with Steve Waugh. With the introduction to the team of Shane Warne, Healy was able to demonstrate his skills standing up to the stumps and reading the varied deliveries of the spinner. In his first 39 Tests, Healy stumped two batsmen. In 14 Tests between 1992 and 1993, he stumped ten batsmen while taking 52 catches.

Healy followed up with another century, against New Zealand at Perth in 1993/94. Healy was also well known for his energy and optimism behind the stumps, and could frequently be heard on effects microphones encouraging the rest of the team, perhaps most prominently praise of Shane Warne, expressed as 'bowling, Warnie'. Notable too was his attitude to injuries; despite breaking all of his fingers during his thirteen-year career he only ever missed one Test match, replaced by Phil Emery in Pakistan. Healy twice captained an Australian XI, in tour matches against the West Indians in 1991–92 and 1992–93. In 1993, he led an official Australian team at the Hong Kong six-a-side tournament and replaced Allan Border as captain of Queensland in 1992–93.

Healy finished his ODI career with a world record 233 dismissals, a mark since overtaken by Gilchrist, Mark Boucher, Moin Khan, Kumar Sangakkara and M.S.Dhoni. Healy maintained his Test place, beginning the season with scores of 68 at Brisbane and 85 at Perth against New Zealand. His only other innings of substance was 46 not out against South Africa in the second Test at Sydney. On the subsequent tour of India, Healy top-scored with 90 in the first Test at Chennai, which Australia lost.

On 4 October 1998, Healy broke Rod Marsh's world record of 355 dismissals when he caught Wasim Akram from the bowling of Colin Miller, during the first Test against Pakistan at Rawalpindi. It was his 104th Test compared with Marsh's 96 Tests. Healy ended with 395 dismissals from 119 Tests. Healy also jointly holds the record in Test cricket (along with Mark Taylor) of being the only cricketers to have been run out in both innings of a Test on two occasions. Unfortunately, he played most ODIs for Australia without winning the Cricket World Cup.

During the lead-up to the 1999/2000 season, the selectors made it clear that they wanted Adam Gilchrist to keep for the Test team as well as the ODI side. Initially, Healy requested that he be allowed to play one more season and then retire, which was refused. He then asked to play the first Test, scheduled for his home ground at Brisbane, as a farewell. This, too, was refused, so he announced his immediate retirement from all forms of the game in a statement released on 28 October 1999. In response to the tremendous public farewells afforded to Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and Justin Langer at the end of the fifth Test at Sydney in 2006/07, Healy called for long-standing players to have their farewells to the game managed more appropriately than his own.

Healy's performances were acknowledged when he was selected as the wicketkeeper in the Australian Cricket Board's team of the 20th century, ahead of greats such as Rod Marsh, Wally Grout and Don Tallon. He was also recognised as a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1994. He was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 2004 and the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame in 2008. In March 2021, the Ian Healy Oval in Brisbane became a first-class cricket venue.