India win first women's Test at Lord's in historic 270-run victory

India beat England by 270 runs at Lord’s, delivering the first women’s Test ever played at the ground. More than 30,000 tickets had been sold ahead of the match, setting a UK attendance record for a women’s Test.

Lord’s first staged a men’s Test in 1884, but did not host a women’s Test until 2026, 142 years later. The match came 50 years after Rachael Heyhoe Flint first led an England Women’s side onto the main ground in 1976, the same year Lord’s staged its first women’s international, a 50-over contest between England and Australia.

In June 2023, the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket called it “truly appalling” that England Women had never played a Test at Lord’s and said the “home of cricket” was still “a home principally for men.” The England and Wales Cricket Board announced on August 22, 2024, that Lord’s would host its first women’s Test in 2026, and MCC included the fixture in a wider 2025-26 schedule that would include the women’s game at the ground.

Before this Test, India Women had played nine Tests in England since their first tour in 1986, winning two and drawing seven. Their previous Test wins on English soil came at Taunton in 2006 and Wormsley in 2014, making the Lord’s result their third such victory in England. The Board of Control for Cricket in India praised the performance, calling it a reflection of the remarkable growth of women’s cricket in India and commending the team’s resilience, skill and character as it congratulated them on a memorable win at the Home of Cricket.