Five days after the heartbreak of the T20 World Cup final, tickets are selling rapidly for England’s upcoming clash with India in what promises to be a rare and historic fixture at the home of cricket.

England’s first-ever women’s Test at Lord’s, beginning on Friday against India, will mark the farewell of at least one of the sport’s greats, following Tammy Beaumont’s announcement of her retirement from international cricket on Wednesday.

Further retirements may yet follow later in the summer. After England’s defeat to Australia in last Sunday’s T20 World Cup final, head coach Charlotte Edwards remarked that “a lot of younger players are now staking a claim” and that she would reassess matters after The Hundred.

Beaumont, however, has decided to take the initiative and head into this Test knowing it will be her final outing in an England shirt.

“There have been a couple of conversations with Lottie [Edwards] about the future of this team, and it just feels like the right time for me to make this decision for myself and my family,” she said during an emotional press conference at Lord’s on Wednesday.

Beaumont leaves the international stage as England’s leading century-maker in One-Day Internationals, with 12 hundreds to her credit.

She was named player of the tournament in 2017 when England last lifted the World Cup, and she produced an unforgettable double-century in the 2023 Ashes Test. She will continue to represent the Blaze in domestic cricket, but after being left out of England’s T20 World Cup squad, her international exit had seemed inevitable.

“Once you’re on the wrong side of 30, people start mentioning it every time your form dips, and it gets in your head more than you’d like,” Beaumont explained. “It’s been on my mind for some time.

Towards the end of the 50-over World Cup, I began to think about how I wanted my career to end. Being left out of the 50-over squad earlier this year was a tough moment. It’s the right time for me to move on and see what life holds beyond international cricket.”

Some worried that this stand-alone Test might struggle to attract attention, given that it comes just five days after England’s T20 World Cup defeat at the same venue. Beaumont’s announcement, however, adds a layer of poignancy to the occasion. Wednesday proved to be a peculiar day for the England squad, who reconvened for a red-ball training session at Lord’s, still surrounded by signage carrying the World Cup slogan “Catch the Spirit” – a reminder of a tournament that ended short of their dream.

“I really feel for them,” Beaumont said. “Some haven’t even been home, or have only had one night in their own bed, and now they’re back doing the complete opposite form of cricket. They’ll need to settle into long spells, get used to leaving deliveries again. They’ve turned up with a great attitude, and the rest of us need to match that energy and come together quickly.”

India, in contrast, have benefited from an additional week of red-ball preparation after their early exit from the World Cup.

Their confidence is such that they opted to cancel their planned training session at Lord’s on Thursday.

Women’s Tests are so infrequent that it is hard to draw firm conclusions from past meetings. The most recent fixture between these sides came in December 2023, when India triumphed by a commanding 347 runs, though conditions at Lord’s will be vastly different from those in Navi Mumbai. Their last Test encounter on English soil was at Bristol in the summer of 2021, where off-spinner Sneh Rana’s late resistance helped India secure a remarkable draw. England’s last multi-day outing came during their Ashes disappointment at the Gabba 18 months ago.

The real weight of this match lies in its historical importance: half a century after the first women’s match at Lord’s, and three years after the independent commission for equity in cricket criticised the lack of a women’s Test at the ground as “truly appalling”, the sport’s final symbolic barrier will at last be broken. Ticket sales are reportedly strong, and if the match extends to four days, it could surpass the attendance record for a women’s Test, currently 35,365, set at the MCG in January–February 2025.

“It’s an incredibly emotional moment,” said India’s Jemimah Rodrigues, who is expected to bat at No 4. “You dream of playing cricket for India, then you dream of playing Test cricket for India. To do it at the home of cricket, where it all began – nothing could be bigger. It’s a dream for millions, and I’m fortunate to live it.”