England opt to bowl vs India
Nat Sciver-Brunt won the toss for England and chose to bowl first in the historic maiden women's Test at Lord's.
Under bright sunny skies, Sciver-Brunt's decision reflected her team's desire to get fully immersed in a momentous occasion, with the most famous ground in cricket finally playing host to a women's Test match, 142 years after the first of what has now been 150 men's Tests at this ground, way back in 1884.
"I think it's a surface that has to last four days," Sciver-Brunt said at the toss. "It should be a good surface but the most we can get out of it will be this morning."
She confirmed two England Test debutants in Mady Villiers and Alice Capsey, who has already played close to 100 white-matches for her country, while her counterpart Harmanpreet Kaur announced a team including the spinner N Shree Charani.
The contest comes just five days after England's anticlimactic loss at this same ground in the T20 World Cup final, but the sense of occasion was indisputable as the teams lined up for the national anthems.
Before the start of play, a gathering took place in the pavilion at which a series of women's portraits were unveiled in the Long Room, including the indomitable Enid Bakewell, who scored a fifty in the first women's ODI at Lord's, back in 1976, and continues to play recreational cricket even at the age of 85.
A parade of some 50 former England women's players then accompanied the teams out on to the pitch before the start to ring the five-minute bell. Some 30,000 tickets have so far been sold across the four days, with a very strong turn-out in the pavilion reflecting the historic nature of the occasion.
England: 1 Tammy Beaumont, 2 Maia Bouchier, 3 Heather Knight, 4 Nat Sciver-Brunt (capt), 5 Alice Capsey, 6 Amy Jones (wk), 7 Mady Villiers, 8 Sophie Ecclestone, 9 Issy Wong, 10 Lauren Filer, 11 Lauren Bell
India: 1 Smriti Mandhana, 2 Shafali Verma, 3 Yastika Bhatia 4 Harmnpreet Kaur (capt), 5 Jemima Rodrigues, 6 Richa Ghosh (wk), 7 Deepti Sharma, 8 Sayali Satghare, 9 Sneh Rana 10 N Shree Charani, 11 Kranti Gaud