Lord’s set to host first women’s Test as England face India
England and India will play a four-day Test at Lord’s, marking a first for women’s cricket at the London ground.
By Lucas Ferreira · Science & Environment Writer
3 min read
Lord’s will stage a women’s Test match for the first time when England meet India in a four-day game starting Friday, AFP reported. The fixture gives women’s cricket a long-delayed place in the Test history of a ground that first hosted a men’s Test 142 years ago.
India coach Amol Muzumdar said the delay was hard to comprehend. “It just boggles my mind that it is just the first (women’s) Test match here at Lord’s,” he said, according to AFP. “It is a great occasion, and we are looking forward to it.”
A long wait at Lord’s
The match comes just over 50 years after Lord’s hosted its first women’s game of any kind. On Aug. 4, 1976, England beat Australia by eight wickets there in a one-day international, AFP reported.
Rachael Heyhoe Flint, a leading figure in the women’s game who died in 2017, captained England that day. AFP reported that women players at the time were still wearing skirts, before the white and coloured trousers used now became standard.
Heyhoe Flint now has a gate named after her at Lord’s. In 1976, however, Marylebone Cricket Club, which owns Lord’s, was still decades from admitting women as members, and women players did not yet have the access now associated with walking through the pavilion’s Long Room before play.
Megan Lear, who batted at No. 5 for England in that 1976 match, later told The Guardian that stepping onto the Lord’s turf felt “like one small step for us women cricketers, but one giant leap towards the future of women’s cricket.”
England return after World Cup final
AFP reported that the Test will be England’s second appearance at Lord’s in less than a week. England lost to Australia there on Sunday in the women’s T20 World Cup final, a match played before a capacity crowd.
Nine players from England’s World Cup squad have been selected for the Test. Captain Nat Sciver-Brunt is in the group and is “hoping to play” despite a lingering calf problem, AFP reported.
England coach Charlotte Edwards said the squad had been preparing for the Test even while playing T20 cricket. “It’s a historic Test match for us as a group and for the Indian team, and we can’t wait to play in front of a lot of people again over the next four days,” Edwards said, according to AFP.
Edwards has her own Lord’s history: she captained England when they won the 2009 Women’s T20 World Cup final at the ground. Teenage spinner Tilly Corteen-Colman, 18, said she had spoken with Edwards about an earlier era when women players were not allowed in the Long Room.
“The first women’s Test at Lord’s is history in the making, so to be involved would be incredible,” Corteen-Colman said, according to AFP.
Beaumont’s England farewell
The match will also be Tammy Beaumont’s final appearance in international cricket. AFP reported that the 35-year-old England batter has played 260 matches for her country since making her debut 17 years ago.
Beaumont became the first English woman to score a Test double century when she made 208 against Australia at Trent Bridge in 2023. She will continue to play domestic cricket after leaving the international game.
“Our first ever women’s Test at Lord’s feels like the perfect occasion to sign off on a career that I could never have dreamt would be as special as it has been,” Beaumont said, according to AFP.
This story draws on original reporting from Al Jazeera.