Kranti Gaud’s maiden five-for puts India in command at Lord’s
Kranti Gaud took a maiden Test five-wicket haul as India dismissed England for 170 and stretched their lead to 157 on the second day of the historic Lord’s Test.
Jul 11, 2026
India spent day two of the first women’s Test at Lord’s turning a good position into a commanding one. England, resuming a wicket down, were bowled out for 170, and by the close India had pushed their lead to 157 with a full second innings in hand. The bowler who did the damage was Kranti Gaud, whose five for 37 ran through the top order and left the home side chasing the game.
Gaud struck inside the first hour and kept striking. She had England 47 for 4 inside 18 overs, beating Alice Capsey’s outside edge to clip the off stump and drawing a thin edge from Maia Bouchier, who made 23. From there England were always playing catch-up, and only a fifth-wicket stand between Amy Jones and Nat Sciver-Brunt gave the innings any real shape.
A record on the game’s biggest stage
The 22-year-old finished with the best figures of her short international career, and the numbers came with a milestone attached. Gaud became the youngest India pace bowler to take a five-wicket haul in a women’s Test, moving past a mark long held by Jhulan Goswami, the fast bowler most young Indian seamers grew up trying to copy. Doing it at Lord’s, in a match already billed as historic, only sharpened the moment for a cricketer who started out in tennis-ball games far from grounds like this one.
She did not have to carry the attack alone. Sayali Satghare backed her up with two for 40, Sneh Rana turned the ball enough to finish with two for 41, and Deepti Sharma chipped in with one for 10 to help clean up the tail. Rana’s dismissal of Jones on the stroke of lunch, caught at short leg off the inside edge, was the blow that ended England’s resistance.
Jones and Sciver-Brunt the lone stand
Jones was the one England batter to look settled. She reached fifty off 59 balls, among the quicker Test half-centuries by an England woman, and put on 84 with her captain before falling for 52. Sciver-Brunt made 44 and ran out of partners soon after, the last five wickets adding little as India’s bowlers kept the pressure on. England were all out inside 60 overs, 115 short of India’s first-innings total.
That total had been built the day before, when Smriti Mandhana top-scored with 83, Harmanpreet Kaur made 58 and Deepti Sharma added 57 to carry India to 285 after Sciver-Brunt had chosen to bowl. It looked a slightly under-par score at the time, given how well India had been placed for more. Two days on, it looks a lot healthier.
India will resume with two full days left and a lead of 124, well placed to force a result in a format they rarely get to play. How hard they push for quick runs, and how long they leave England to bat last, will shape the rest of a Test that made history simply by being staged here.