Basic view of the covers as rain delays play throughout first Take a look at — England v New Zealand at Lord’s Cricket Floor, London June 4, 2021. — Reuters
Lord’s will lastly host a ladies’s Take a look at, 142 years since staging its first such males’s match, when England face India in a four-day recreation on the ‘House of Cricket’ beginning Friday.
“It just boggles my mind that it is just the first (women’s) Test match here at Lord’s,” stated India coach Amol Muzumdar, who added: “It is a great occasion and we are looking forward to it.”
The match takes place simply over 50 years because the first ladies’s match of any variety on the famend London venue, with England beating Australia by eight wickets in a one-day worldwide on August 4, 1976.
England’s captain at Lord’s that day was the late Rachael Heyhoe Flint, a pioneering determine in a ladies’s recreation the place gamers had been nonetheless carrying skirts slightly than, as they do no now, white or colored trousers.
Heyhoe Flint, who died in 2017, now has a gate named after her at Lord’s.
However in 1976, Marylebone Cricket Membership (MCC), the homeowners of Lord’s, had been nonetheless many years away from admitting ladies as members, with the considered females strolling straight via the Lengthy Room of the pavilion earlier than taking the sector a distant dream.
England’s No 5 that day, Megan Lear, in contrast the expertise to the moon touchdown, telling the Guardian: “On that day in 1976, to walk on to the hallowed turf at Lord’s, it was like one small step for us women cricketers, but one giant leap towards the future of women’s cricket.”
It’s a signal of how issues have modified from these novice days {that a} Take a look at between two skilled sides may also be England’s second fixture at Lord’s in below every week following Sunday’s defeat by Australia within the ladies’s T20 World Cup closing— a match that attracted a capability crowd.
9 of England’s World Cup squad are included for the Take a look at, together with captain Nat Sciver-Brunt, who’s “hoping to play” regardless of a nagging calf harm.
‘Historical past within the making’
“We’ve always known this has been on the calendar,” stated England coach Charlotte Edwards.
“A lot of our players have been doing Test match prep throughout the T20s so we’re really looking forward to it,” added Edwards, England’s captain once they received the 2009 Girls’s T20 World Cup closing at Lord’s.
“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”
Teenage England spinner Tilly Corteen-Colman is nicely conscious of the significance of the event.
“I remember speaking to Lottie (Edwards) about when she used to play here and they weren’t allowed in the Long Room,” stated the 18-year-old.
“The first women’s Test at Lord’s is history in the making, so to be involved would be incredible. It would mean the absolute world.”
In addition to a breakthrough, the sport may also mark England batter Tammy Beaumont’s farewell to worldwide cricket.
Beaumont has made 260 appearances for England since her debut 17 years in the past and he or she was the primary English lady to attain a double century in a Take a look at — 208 in opposition to Australia at Trent Bridge in 2023.
“When I fell in love with playing cricket as a young girl, I barely knew that playing cricket for England was an option,” stated Beaumont.
Th 35-year-old, who will proceed to play home cricket, added: “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.”
