Some grounds hand out history reluctantly. Lord’s, over the past three days, has been giving it away by the armful.
On day three of the first women’s Test ever staged at the Home of Cricket, Yastika Bhatia’s 113 — the first Test century by a woman at Lord’s — carried India to a declaration on 341/7, before Sayali Satghare, Sneh Rana and Kranti Gaud reduced England to 130/6 at stumps in pursuit of an improbable 457. India need just four more wickets on Monday to complete a maiden Test victory at the ground. For English cricket, on the same day Brendon McCullum’s exit as England Test coach was confirmed, it caps a bruising Sunday: packed stands at a Test that has sold more than 30,000 tickets, warm guard-of-honour farewells for Tammy Beaumont and Heather Knight, and a gathering sense that the occasion belongs entirely to the visitors.
Yet look closely at how the day unfolded and this was anything but a procession.
How Yastika Bhatia Turned A Strong Position Into A Crushing One
Bhatia is only in this XI because a knee laceration ruled Pratika Rawal out, and her innings survived two lives. The very first ball of the morning, from Lauren Bell, clipped her off stump without dislodging the bails, and Mady Villiers put her down off her own bowling on 86. In between, Bhatia’s history-making hundred — 113 from 145 balls with 14 fours — put her on the Lord’s honours board alongside Kranti Gaud, whose five-wicket haul on day two made her the first woman to achieve that feat with the ball.
The support acts mattered too. Smriti Mandhana added only one run to her overnight 69 before a leg-side strangle off Bell ended her second successive fifty, and Harmanpreet Kaur fell lbw to Sophie Ecclestone for 16. But Richa Ghosh’s 50 not out from 52 balls, struck with eight fours, gave the declaration its timing and its teeth. Ecclestone toiled to 5-118, her fourth five-wicket haul in Test cricket, while England’s problems deepened when, according to IANS, Bell was forced off the field with abdominal soreness. India’s match aggregate of 626 runs tells its own story on a wearing surface.
Can England Survive The Final Day Of The Lord’s Test?
The evidence of the evening session says no. Gaud bowled Beaumont for a duck in her final international innings, the crowd and the India players pausing for a guard of honour. Satghare trapped Maia Bouchier for two and later cleaned up Alice Capsey for 21, Rana bowled captain Nat Sciver-Brunt for 11 as she swept, and Knight — playing her farewell Test before retirement — edged Gaud to short leg. Four of England’s top six were gone cheaply, and the target of 457 was already a distant abstraction.
Amy Jones is the reason the game reaches a fourth morning at all. Her unbeaten 52 from 72 balls, and a defiant 67-run stand with Villiers that ended with Ghosh’s sharp catch at silly point off Rana, kept India in the field until stumps. Satghare finished the day with 2-19 and Rana 2-33, and England still need another 327 — a chase that is no longer the point. Survival is, and Sky Sports has noted England have not beaten India in a women’s Test since 1995. With only Jones, Ecclestone and the tail remaining, batting through a full final day looks a taller order than anything the first three days produced.
India should finish this well before tea. The first women’s Test at Lord’s, staged 50 years after Rachael Heyhoe Flint first led an England women’s side out at the ground, has already delivered two honours-board firsts. On Monday it should deliver its defining image: an India team that has out-batted, out-bowled and out-thought England celebrating on an outfield where, until this week, no women’s Test had ever been played.
