🏏 Updates from the historic one-off women’s Test at Lord’s 🏏 Hosts have redemption in mind | The Spin | Email Tanya
33m agoEngland have won the toss and will bowl!
1st over: India 4-0 (Smriti 3, Verma 0) Bell with the first over. She puts her marker down and Sciver Brunt runs up to give her a final pat for luck. Bell’s last outing here on Sunday wasn’t her best but she’s on the money straight away here, skimming past Smriti’s outside edge. Smriti picks up a couple through the covers and we’re off!
Of course Sue Redfern is officiating.
Oh wow, this is amazing, fifty female ex England cricketers are on the outfield to ring the bell which has been brought out on a table. Alex Hartley, Isa Guha, Lynne Thomas, Nat Sciver Brunt, Charlotte Edwards and many more. Enid Bakewell and other members of the team who first played here in 1976 do the honours.
Then two teams in whites walk through the Long Room and out through the pavilion gate. Anthems. Then fireworks and flames (a pet peeve but why?!).
India: Smriti Mandhana, Shafali Verma, Yastika Bhatia Harmnpreet Kaur (c), Jemima Rodrigues, Richa Ghosh (wk), Deepti Sharma, Sayali Satghare, Sneh Rana N Shree Charani, Kranti Gaud
A debut for 21 year old slow left armer N Shree Charani adds to the strong spin hand.
England: Tammy Beaumont, Maia Bouchier, Heather Knight, Nat Sciver-Brunt (c), Alice Capsey, Amy Jones (wk), Maddy Villiers, Sophie Ecclestone, Issy Wong, Lauren Bell, Lauren Filer.
Excited to see Filer getting a game after carrying the drinks around the World Cup, and Villiers has been knocking on the door in domestic cricket.
Harmanpreet Kaur and Nat Sciver-Brunt are in their blazers. England will bowl, in the heat.
“I think its a surface that has to last four days,” says Sciver Brunt. “It should be a good surface but the most we can get out of it will be this morning.” – Test debuts for Alice Capsey and Maddy Villiers.
“It feels like a great opportunity,” says Harmanpreet, “and it is amazing to be part of it.” A Test debut for Shree Charani.
Good morning! It’s been a long road, with many screes, many dead ends, but we made it. A first woman’s Test at Lord’s: 50 years after the first women’s game at Lord’s, 92 years after the first women’s Test.
Both teams are out on the hallowed turf, while in the watching Long Room portraits of female cricketers of the past have been unveiled: Belinda Clark, Mary Duggan, Enid Bakewell, Jan Brittin, Myrtle MacLagan, and the World Cup0winning team of 1993.
The boards behind the Tavern stand have been replaced to represent female cricketing achievement and everywhere are cricketers of today and shadows of the past.
To business: England must switch gear immediately – just four days after they lost the Women’s World Cup here. Six players change from blue and red to whites – captain Nat Sciver-Brunt, Heather Knight, Lauren Bell, Alice Capsey, Sophie Ecclestone and Amy Jones. Ellie Threlkeld, Tilly Corteen-Coleman, all-rounder Mady Villiers and fast bowler Grace Potts join the squad.
And it’s a last hurrah for Tammy Beaumont, who saw the writing on the way after a magnificent England career.
India have been able to have a more leisurely week, albeit because they were knocked out of the World Cup in the knockout stages. They’ve had time to process the disappointment – my hunch is on them spoiling the party.
Toss at 10.30am BST, play at 11am – join us!
