Former India captain Diana Edulji marked 50 years of Indian women's international cricket on 31 October 2025, reflecting on a half-century of progress that began on a difficult afternoon in Bengaluru and has culminated in an ICC Women's ODI World Cup title. 'The building has come up beautifully,' she said, crediting the foundation laid by her generation for the heights the current side has reached.

Where It All Began

India played their first official women's international match on 31 October 1976 against West Indies in Bengaluru, the opening game of a six-Test series. Shanta Rangaswamy captained the side, while Diana played alongside her sister Behroze in a match that ended in a draw. The conditions were challenging in ways that went beyond the cricket itself — facilities were poor, financial support was negligible, and the players were unaccustomed to the pace of international bowling. 'You won't believe it. Because we were not used to that pace, we didn't have a very firm grip on the bat, and when they bowled, the bat would fly out of our hands,' Diana recalled.

Yet the team, coached at the time by former men's batter Lala Amarnath, refused to fold. The breakthrough came in the fourth Test in Patna — India's first-ever international victory in women's cricket — with Diana herself hitting the winning runs in front of a crowd estimated at 30,000 to 35,000. 'People ran onto the ground, and we were completely surrounded. I lost my bat and gloves; they were simply snatched away, but it was worth it,' she said.

Diana Edulji's Historic Milestones

Diana went on to become a trailblazer in her own right. She was India's first ODI captain and the first to lead the country in a World Cup. She became the first Indian bowler to claim 100 wickets in women's international cricket and remains the only women's Test bowler to have delivered more than 5,000 balls. She was also the first Indian woman cricketer to receive the Padma Shri and the first Indian woman inducted into the ICC Hall of Fame. This collection of firsts underlines just how formative her era was for the sport in India.

The Turning Point: Lord's 2017

Over the following five decades, India reached multiple World Cup finals, claimed a Commonwealth Games silver medal, won two consecutive Asian Games golds, secured eight Asia Cup titles, and became the first team to play a women's Test at Lord's. But Diana identifies the 2017 Women's World Cup final at Lord's — a narrow loss to England — as the moment Indian women's cricket truly entered the national consciousness. 'All of them became household names during that time. Lord's was packed, and the match was watched by people all over the world. The Prime Minister of India invited a team that had lost the final to his residence for high tea. That showed that this team had arrived,' she said.

Pay Parity, WPL, and the Shah Era

Diana also recalled her tenure on the Committee of Administrators (CoA) that oversaw the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), during which the push for equal treatment of women cricketers gained formal momentum. She credited current ICC Chairman Jay Shah — in his earlier role as BCCI Secretary — with converting that momentum into structural change, including the introduction of pay parity and the launch of the Women's Premier League (WPL). 'Mr Jay Shah's vision has helped women's cricket prosper a lot. He has taken the game to the global stage and helped bring cricket into the Olympics, which is something we would never have dreamt of,' she said.

World Cup Win and What Comes Next

The culmination of that journey arrived on 2 November 2024, when India claimed the ICC Women's ODI World Cup — the one major trophy that had eluded the side. Diana, who watched from the stands, called it 'the icing on the cake.' India is now set to host the inaugural ICC Women's Champions Trophy in February 2027, a further sign of the sport's expanding footprint. As the anniversary is marked on 31 October 2025, the story of Indian women's cricket remains, in Diana's words, very much still being written.