It goes back to 1973, when the inaugural Women’s inter-state Nationals tournament with three teams played a key role to find young talents in the country. The number of teams increased to 14, by the third edition of the same tournament. 

In 1975, the Australia U-25 team were on a Tour to India for a three-match Test series. Soon, India played against New Zealand, England, and West Indies, in home and away encounters. 

On October 31, 1976, Indian senior women’s team featured in their debut Test match against West Indies in Bangalore under the leadership of Shanta Rangaswamy. Both the teams were quite competitive and played out a draw. In the six-match red-ball series, both the teams won one game each. 

Two years later, the Indian team made their ODI debut in a group fixture against England women in the 1978 edition of the World Cup. It was the second edition of the Women’s 50-overs World Cup, and was hosted by India for the first time. Unfortunately, the Indian team lost all their three matches against England, Australia, and New Zealand. 

The Women in Blue won their first 50-overs series in the 1994/95 Tour to New Zealand. 

India emerged as a runner-up in the 2005 and 2017 edition of the Women’s ODI World Cup. In the 2020 edition of the T20 World Cup, they lost the final to Australia. 

Mithali Raj is the leading run-scorer for the Indian team with 10,868 runs across all the formats. The most wickets (352) has been taken by Jhulan Goswami.