First womens odi world cup: England’s 1963 triumph & legacy

The first Women’s ODI World Cup was staged in England, contested by seven teams in a round-robin league of sixty overs per side. England finished champions, led by captain Rachael Heyhoe Flint, with outstanding all-round performances from Enid Bakewell. The tournament was privately funded and preceded the men’s equivalent, rewriting what was possible for the women’s game.

Participating teams

• England
• Australia
• New Zealand
• Jamaica
• Trinidad and Tobago
• Young England
• International XI

The long view: how a one-off dream became the first women’s cricket world cup

The origin of the first Women’s ODI World Cup reads nothing like a committee memo or a standardized event plan. It began with persuasion—the kind that fills rooms, melts skepticism, and moves money. Rachael Heyhoe Flint, England’s captain and a peerless advocate for women’s sport, had been pushing for visibility, structure, and ambition. She had the audacity to call for something the women’s game had never been given: a global tournament in the one-day format, played at recognized grounds, and organized with genuine seriousness. She did not wait for a governing body to organize it. She and the Women’s Cricket Association found a way.

There was a benefactor with the courage to cut a cheque large enough to make flights, accommodation, and logistics possible. Sir Jack Hayward—philanthropist and football man of Wolverhampton renown—underwrote the costs when others would only underwrite doubts. That money formed the spine of an event that should have been on the calendar by right, not privilege. Yet sometimes making history means finding the person willing to sign a promise before the rest of the world is ready.

England hosted. County outgrounds and club surfaces were lined, squares rolled, and temporary facilities readied. The red ball was king, white clothing standard. No colored kits. No television trucks in convoy. This was an era when newspapers did the heavy lifting and radio was a rumor that drifted across the airwaves. The players worked jobs, studied, and stole vacation days to wear a national crest. Professionalism was an ethic, not a pay grade.

And then the cricket began.

Why the first women’s world cup came before the men’s

It happened sooner for women than for men for a few clear reasons. One-day cricket was in vogue across England’s domestic scene; extended-overs knockouts and Sunday leagues had proven that a full day’s limited-overs match could create a result, a narrative, and an audience. The women’s administrators moved faster than the men’s to leverage this momentum, and they found private funding. Men’s cricket had larger bureaucracies and more friction. Women’s cricket, with fewer resources and less baggage, simply got on with it.

There was also the simple urgency of visibility. Women’s cricket needed a marquee event to command the world’s attention. If there was a window, it was seized. The result: a global women’s tournament, in England, with one-day internationals at its heart, before the men’s game ever ran a similar world event.

Teams and what they represented

• England: The organizers and hosts, a squad molded by club and county cricket, by grit, and by the leadership of Rachael Heyhoe Flint. The team’s identity was orderly yet daring, with the calibre to bat deep and the confidence to back their bowlers.
• Australia: Cricket’s perennial standard bearers. Fast, fit, and sharp in the field, Australia carried a rare consistency. If England were the pioneers, Australia were the challengers who knew how to spoil a party.
• New Zealand: Disciplined, tactically tidy, and excellent in the ring (that inner circle where singles vanish). The Kiwis brought sharp opening bowlers and a batting order that prized partnerships over heroism.
• Jamaica: A proud flag for the Caribbean, bringing Caribbean rhythm to the English summer. This side’s spirit outweighed its resources, but its cricketers could swing a ball, pivot on the back foot, and field like their lives depended on it.
• Trinidad and Tobago: Tactically different to Jamaica in subtle ways—more patience at the crease, a touch more reliance on spin. Together, the two Caribbean teams provided a vivid picture of West Indian women’s cricket at the time: rich in talent, hungry for elite competition.
• Young England: A developmental side, assembled to deepen the field and accelerate the progress of England’s promising players. Critics questioned its inclusion; history vindicated it. Many future mainstays of England’s lineup learned the demands of international cricket on those summer days.
• International XI: A composite team of skilled players from nations without a full organizing structure for the event. It was a brave experiment—an invitation to talented cricketers who would otherwise have missed the stage. It also meant that the World Cup had an undeniably global feel from minute one.

Format and rules: sixty overs, league ladder

The first Women’s ODI World Cup was a pure round-robin: every team faced every other team once, with the champion decided by the final standings. There was no knockout stage, no semifinal jeopardy, no last-day final under fireworks. The drama came slower and steadier—through a ladder climbed rung by rung.

• Overs per innings: 60
• Ball: red
• Clothing: white
• Final: league winner crowned as champion
• Points: awarded for wins, with ties and washouts handled via standard allotments of the time

Sixty overs reflected the rhythm and resources of that period in English cricket. Domestic limited-overs cricket had normalized longer one-day matches, and the women mirrored this, ensuring time for top-orders to set foundations and for captains to stretch field plans across a fuller tactical canvas.

Venues and scheduling: cricket on county greens

This was not a tournament of giant stadiums and branded fan zones. It was county pitches and club grounds, where hedges and church spires often shaped the boundary’s silhouette. Outfields were not always lightning fast. Boundaries were not cut to Twenty20 dimensions. The conditions demanded placement, not brute force; seamers found movement in the morning, and spinners hunted patience in the afternoon.

Matches were spread sensibly to minimize travel and to maximize the use of prepared squares. Schedules weaved around the availability of grounds while maintaining fairness in rest periods. Volunteers, local associations, and the WCA worked in concert to keep the carnival moving, sometimes on little more than goodwill and a stack of paper fixtures.

The cricket itself: how tactics looked and felt

The first women’s ODI world cup created a template. With sixty overs, openers were asked to play time and tempo—build a platform through technique, then expand into scoring lanes as the ball softened. The middle order often featured an anchor and a freer spirit. The anchor dealt in nudges and twos; the aggressor found gaps and long boundaries square of the wicket.

Fielding sides opened with swing and seam. The red ball, lacquer intact, moved freely under English skies. New-ball pairs sought slanted seams that shaped in to the right-hander, then across. Captains leaned on ring fielders—backward point, extra-cover, midwicket—to smother singles, with fine leg and third man tasked to pull back the deflections. Spinners—orthodox left-armers and off-spinners in particular—operated long spells through the middle. It wasn’t uncommon to see fields reminiscent of four-day cricket for stretches: short midwicket to catch the clip, short cover to pounce on the push.

Wickets often arrived not in clusters but in carefully built traps. Captains used the longer format to set patterns—bait the drive with a fuller length, tuck the batter with a leg-side line, then interject the surprise. It was chess at human pace, not blitz.

England’s campaign: organized, confident, and led with purpose

England, more than any other team, knew exactly what they wanted from the tournament. Rachael Heyhoe Flint led with intelligence and assurance. She understood optics and outcomes, the image of a team and the reality of points. On the field, that leadership meant England rarely lost shape. When a batter set, England stretched the off-side ring; when a partnership flickered, a change of pace or angle was never far away.

Enid Bakewell was the engine room, the glue, and the accelerant. She batted with command at the top, mixing drives with underplayed flicks that bled bowlers of rhythm. Her off-spin and athleticism made her as valuable in the field as with bat in hand. England’s opening combinations built platforms the old-fashioned way: watchful beginnings, then conviction when bowlers missed their length.

There were big days—an opening stand for the ages that produced the first centuries recorded in women’s one-day international cricket, a statement that this format would be a place of landmark moments as well as wins and losses. England’s bowling unit, not the fastest but undeniably accurate, turned the screws. They hit seam more than raw pace, yet they were relentless in length. The wicketkeeper kept standards high; the slip cordon trusted its hands.

Australia and New Zealand: relentless pressure, timeless standards

Australia carried all the hallmarks that have made the country a constant force in women’s cricket: brisk opening bowlers, a wicketkeeper who thought as quickly as she moved, batters who valued running between the wickets as much as boundary-hitting. Their captaincy was assertive; their practices drilled. They stayed in every game to the last few overs and pressed England the hardest in the race for top spot.

New Zealand were less inclined to follow, more inclined to control. Their cricket valued shape—of an innings, of a spell, of a field. They favored seamers who could tilt the ball late and spinners who refused to bowl to a hitter’s arc. With the bat, they stitched stands together patiently. If Australia’s pressure was a rolling wave, New Zealand’s was a tide that crept up the beach and never receded.

Caribbean pioneers: Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago

To have two Caribbean teams represented was itself a marker of intent from the organizers—to seed opportunity more broadly and to recognize national programs that were emerging at different speeds. Jamaica brought swagger in the field and natural timing with the bat. Their seamers could nip the ball at chest height; their batters loved the cut and pull when the ball was short enough.

Trinidad and Tobago offered balance and craft. There was more spin, more use of angles, more patience. Cricketing intelligence was their hallmark—an understanding of when to rein back, when to pinch a single, when to drag a line tighter. These teams didn’t come with the depth of England or Australia, but they came with a sense of adventure and an obvious pride that made their wins and near-wins feel seismic.

Young England and the International XI: bold ideas that worked

Young England was a developmental masterstroke. It did two things simultaneously: strengthened the fixture list and put pressure on the senior England squad by exposing younger players to the intensity of international cricket. Some critics felt it was anomalous to field a second team under the same flag, but the proof lay in the decades that followed as those players graduated into fully fledged internationals hardened by that early exposure.

The International XI was an elegant answer to a tricky problem—how to include talented players from nations not yet positioned to send full teams. It gave the tournament an open-armed feel and granted deserving cricketers a world cup without the infrastructure. In many ways, it symbolized the most progressive instinct in the women’s game: find ways to say yes, and then raise the standard together.

Final standings

Rank	Team
1	England
2	Australia
3	New Zealand
4	International XI
5	Jamaica
6	Trinidad and Tobago
7	Young England

The exact points tallies are less important than the shape of the ladder. England’s control saw them home; Australia’s consistency pulled them into the slipstream; New Zealand were never far away; the composite International XI battled above expectations; the Caribbean teams landed blows; Young England took lessons that would mature into future results.

Players who defined the tournament

• Rachael Heyhoe Flint (England, captain): A stateswoman in whites. Her batting was composed, her captaincy brave without being reckless. More than that, she moved the whole enterprise into existence. Few players in cricket can claim to have changed the sport by making runs and making phone calls with equal effect. She did.
• Enid Bakewell (England, top-order batter and all-rounder): The tournament’s standard-bearer with the bat. Opening the event with a century was both an act of history and a declaration. Her game was direct and sure-footed; her off-spin and fielding made her a three-dimensional threat.
• Lynne Thomas (England, opener): Paired with Bakewell in that first match masterpiece, Thomas’s century placed two English names on the very first page of the one-day record book. Fluent through cover and brutal when bowlers dropped short, she made new-ball plans look ordinary.
• Sharon Tredrea (Australia, fast bowler): A spearhead who set the tone with the new ball. She got lift and seam and refused to release pressure with freebies. The word that followed her everywhere was pace, but her economy and method mattered even more in sixty-over cricket.
• Margaret Jennings (Australia, wicketkeeper-batter): Street-smart behind the stumps, a forger of half-chances. With the bat, she turned fives into tens and tens into twenties, the kind of increments that tilt one-day matches. Her keeping lent the Australian attack an edge.
• Trish McKelvey (New Zealand, captain-batter): New Zealand’s calm center. She handled the balance between consolidation and ambition magnificently, with a sense for the match that was almost rhythmic. Her sides were immaculate in the field.
• Barbara Bevege (New Zealand, batter): Rarely flustered. A player of immaculate timing and judgment, she led New Zealand’s batting with the sort of clarity that turns tricky chases into inevitable ones.
• Jamaican and Trinidadian standouts: Names from these teams gave the tournament its pulse—quick-footed batters who brought Caribbean flair to English grounds; seamers who could cut the ball just enough to pose constant questions; spinners who slowed the game to their preferred tempo. Their contributions were pivotal in establishing that the women’s game had a true global reach, not merely three powerhouses trading wins.
• International XI stalwarts: The composite side included cricketers whose techniques were too good to be left at home just because of an absent national program. Their presence elevated the overall cricket and guaranteed that every fixture had teeth.

Numbers that matter (beyond the scorecards)

• The first ODI centuries in women’s cricket were scored on opening day by England’s openers, a double milestone that did as much for the format’s reputation as any administrative communiqué ever could.
• The overs per innings—sixty—played a pivotal role in shaping tactics: long spells for spinners, pronounced value in singles, and old-ball handling that rewarded batters with wrists and patience.
• Bowling attacks were built around seamers who could stay on a line for entire sessions and spinners who were not afraid to toss the ball, even to set batters. Metronomic accuracy, not explosive pace, won the middle overs.
• Fielding set a new standard. Crowded rings, energetic backing-up, sprinting to cut off twos—this is where the women’s game at the time made giant strides in a short span. Fitness and anticipation visibly improved as the tournament wore on.

A matchday in that first Women’s World Cup felt like this

Cool morning, cloud broken enough to tease movement. Both teams walked laps because warm-up routines were still being invented. The coach carried a bag of balls and a clipboard that rarely left his or her grip. You could hear plans, not slogans: hit the top of off; keep third man fine; don’t chase out-swingers early. Toss won, decision made; everyone nodded. The rest was countless, ordinary acts strung together—two hands around a ball low at point, the hint of a seam that takes the thinnest edge, one mid-on shout that lifts energy after a boundary. This was the character of the tournament: not flashy but fiercely earnest, layered in skill and purpose.

Why sixty overs made sense then and why fifty makes sense now

The first women’s cricket world cup leaned into the longer one-day length because the domestic structure around it had already normalized that rhythm. Bowlers were conditioned to longer spells, batters to innings that unfurled over time, captains to fields that evolved across many cycles of observation. As the one-day game matured, the shift to fifty overs tightened the narrative arc—more urgency at the back end, sharper bowling changes, a premium on strike rotation from ball one. But in those formative days, sixty overs offered breathing space: it allowed teams still learning international rhythms to find their way into matches rather than sprint from the start.

Funding, logistics, and the unsung heroes

Sir Jack Hayward’s funding didn’t just pay for airfare and hotels; it broadcast belief. Symbolism matters, especially in women’s sport. Players arrived knowing someone outside their teams considered their cricket worth this investment. Volunteers stitched the event together: scorers who totted everything on paper; groundstaff who rolled and rolled; organizers who booked buses and rooms, juggled last-minute illnesses, and fended off unpredictable English weather with a stack of tarpaulins. The Women’s Cricket Association, in partnership with county clubs and local councils, operated like a start-up during a launch—everyone owned the mission.

How England became champions

England were not simply the best team; they were the most self-aware. They knew exactly what their bowlers could and could not do—and set fields accordingly. They trusted their openers to weather the first twelve overs and then harvest. They rarely spilled catches. Their captain read batting tempos and placed fielders as if she could hear a batter’s internal metronome. Their defeats and near-misses did not dent clarity. When a campaign retains shape from first match to last, it usually ends with a lap of honor.

Australia’s near miss and New Zealand’s warning

Australia pushed England hard enough to make the final stretch feel precarious. Their bowlers hit the deck and the seam. Their middle order thrived on pressure. Their fielding squeezed England in ways no other side could. It was the difference between a comfortable procession and a championship that had to be earned on merit every other afternoon.

New Zealand left a different kind of mark. Their methods have echoed down the decades: patience in batting, discipline in bowling, excellence in fielding. Even when results didn’t break their way, they were never frustrating to watch. They were a manual in efficient one-day cricket, and their presence guaranteed the tournament had no easy days.

What was different about the International XI and why it mattered

The composite side ensured opportunity drove selection, not passport. It gave the world cup texture—players with different accents and domestic habits sharing a dressing room, a kind of cultural crucible. In the short term, it raised the standard. In the long term, it created role models across borders. Young cricketers from nations without a full structure saw a pathway. That matters. Pathways alter lives; tournaments alter systems.

Media, memory, and the myth of obscurity

It’s easy to say there was little coverage. True in the strictest sense. But those who showed up did so with curiosity and respect. Local press photographers captured batters mid-drive with church spires in the background. National broadsheets tucked match reports into their pages more often than the cynics expected. Radio bulletins told listeners that England’s women were playing Australia in a world event. The ripples were real. And memory often grows in proportion to its obstacles. Much of what we remember about that first world cup is colored by the knowledge that it shouldn’t have been possible, yet it happened anyway.

Fast facts about the inaugural women’s cricket world cup

• Host nation: England
• Champion: England Women
• Format: Single round-robin league; sixty overs per side; champion determined by final standings
• Number of teams: Seven
• Purpose of Young England: Developmental side to deepen competition and expedite player growth
• Purpose of International XI: Composite team to include top players from countries without full representation
• Key figures: Rachael Heyhoe Flint (organizer-captain), Sir Jack Hayward (principal financier), Enid Bakewell (standout all-rounder)
• Distinctive firsts: First recorded ODI centuries in the women’s game by England’s openers in the opening fixture
• Why it preceded the men’s event: Faster administrative action by the women’s game, private funding secured, and a domestic limited-overs culture ready to host
• Ball and attire: Red ball, white clothing, traditional sight screens, and no colored kits

Records and milestones that set the tone

• Batting landmarks: The tournament delivered the first ODI hundreds in women’s cricket—emphatic proof that the format offered room for artistry and big scores. Several opening partnerships crossed the century mark, often the decisive factor in slow-burn contests.
• Bowling patterns: Leading wicket-takers were often medium pacers who hit a handspan-sized area for hours. Spinners collected quietly but decisively; maiden overs were real currency. Economy was cherished because sixty overs supply relentless exposure—bad lengths do not hide for long.
• Fielding excellence: Run-outs mattered. You could count on one hand the number of poor throws England made that summer. Australia were not far behind. New Zealand’s catching at cover and extra was clinic-level. The Caribbean teams had arms like catapults from the boundary and cutters at point who made batters feel watched.
• Team totals: The ladder rewarded teams that understood tempo. Modest totals sometimes defended successfully when fields were tight and the ball old. Big totals set early killed contests when bowlers were forced into defensive lines. The spread of par scores widened across the tournament as teams learned conditions.

Cultural impact: beyond the boundary

For a generation of girls, the first women’s ODI world cup was the first proof you could aim your life at something larger than a county trial or a friendly. National boards took notice. The event hastened discussions at cricket’s old institutions about how women’s cricket should be supported and integrated. Even where inertia persisted, the world cup made the status quo look dated.

Schools benefited, too. Teachers who coached girls could suddenly point to headlines and say, this is a pathway. Clubs began to allocate better training slots. County associations considered youth structures with more intent. Over time, and with many battles left to fight, resources followed belief.

The origin story that still teaches administrators lessons

• Move quickly when the window opens. The women’s administrators did not linger over feasibility studies until momentum drained away.
• Secure a patron, but keep the soul. Money enabled the event; passion defined it. The balance is delicate. They struck it.
• Put players first in logistics. Travel and ground allocation were imperfect, but teams felt looked after. That mattered in how they played.
• Keep the format fair and comprehensible. A straightforward league table generated clarity. Every match mattered in equal measure.
• Leave space for emerging talent. The inclusion of Young England and an International XI brought new cricketers into the light and expanded the community from day one.

The lineage of champions and what England’s win meant

England’s triumph did more than put a trophy in a cabinet. It declared that England could shoulder the weight of both organization and performance. It cemented Heyhoe Flint’s status as the sport’s most consequential figure of her time. It elevated Bakewell as the archetype of the modern all-rounder in women’s cricket. It also began a lineage of global competition that future generations would join and eventually professionalize.

Why this tournament still matters to coaches and players

• For coaches: It is a case study in building a campaign with resources that are limited but values that are unlimited. It teaches the power of method—field settings designed for your bowlers’ actual skills, batting orders built to real roles, selection that values balance over reputation.
• For players: It is proof that innings management wins long one-day games, that strike rotation is as lethal as a cover drive, that a spell of nine overs on a length can turn a match more surely than a solitary wicket-taking thunderbolt.
• For administrators: It is an argument, as strong as any, for investing in women’s sport and trusting that audiences will meet you halfway when you stage something meaningful.

A brief, vivid portrait of a key figure: Rachael Heyhoe Flint

You could see it in the way she spoke at tosses and presentations. She was at once witty and implacable. A batter by trade, a captain by temperament, and a deputy chair of anything that needed building. Her innings were built in the old manner: watch, wait, punish. Her leadership was modern: communicate, empower, insist on standards, fight publicly when necessary. The first women’s world cup bears her imprint not in the plaque under a photograph but in the very idea of it. She is a reminder that one person can credibly drive a sport forward when backed by a team as stubborn as she is.

A brief, vivid portrait of a key figure: Enid Bakewell

Some players own mornings. Bakewell felt born for first sessions: the ball new, seam upright, fielders chattering. She liked the challenge, the straight ball, the one that climbs. The bat came down as if sliding down rails, and the ball moved in a geometry that looked inevitable. When her name appears in the same breath as firsts—first centuries, first great partnerships—it makes intuitive sense. She was the prototype of the ODI all-rounder you want when the day is long and the game stubborn.

How the first women’s one-day world cup changed the dressing room

There is a difference between a group of cricketers who have toured on bilateral series and a squad that has navigated a world cup. The latter understands cumulative pressure. They know that net run-rate (or its historical equivalent) can decide a ladder, that fitness on day twelve looks different to fitness on day one, that second spells at dusk require a different mental mechanism than first spells in the morning. The England dressing room, and those of Australia and New Zealand, came out of that tournament with a shared language of tournament play. That lexicon has been handed down, modified, reimagined, but it started here.

Lessons for modern analysts and strategists

• Control the middle overs. In sixty-over matches, the middle is where the match is often won. Even in today’s fifty-over landscape, the lesson holds: wickets in the middle strangle death-overs ambition; runs against the turn in the middle erase early dots.
• Fielding is not an accessory. Watching those early games, you see fielding not just prevent runs but create identity. Teams that fielded with style lifted their bowlers and rattled batters. The value of an elite ring has only risen with time.
• The best captains take small edges. Rachael Heyhoe Flint excelled at cumulative advantage—moving a fielder five yards, changing an angle, switching ends at the exact right moment. Strategy is often a mosaic of tiny decisions.
• Development sides accelerate ecosystems. Young England’s presence enriched the senior pipeline. Leagues and tournaments around the world have embraced similar ideas with A-sides, emerging squads, and invitational XIs.

How to picture the final week without looking at a scorecard

Imagine the league table narrowing to a two-team race but with a third capable of upsetting the balance. Imagine England calculating permutations not on spreadsheets but in the captain’s head and the manager’s notebook. Imagine gentle rain delays that turn into tactical recalibrations. Imagine team talks shortened to a single sentence: do your job. Then imagine the last handshake of the last game, the coach’s sigh, and the moment when a champion realizes they have not just won a tournament but established a world event as a permanent fixture.

The legacy in plain terms

• A proof of concept became a tradition.
• Careers were made, roles were invented, expectations were raised.
• Administrators saw that the women’s game could organize, attract, and deliver.
• The men’s game followed with its own event, but the women had pointed the way.
• Future world cups—tighter formats, fuller television, bigger crowds—have grown from the roots planted in English soil during that first burst of international one-day cricket.

What the first women’s ODI world cup means today

Every time a modern women’s world cup sells out a major ground, you can draw a faint line back to the county outgrounds and club paddocks where the first edition was played. Every time a young opener raises her bat for an ODI century, you can hear an echo of the opening day when two English batters did it first, in tandem, under no one’s expectations but their own. Every time a board releases a fundraising report or sponsors fill a jersey, it’s worth remembering that the first great leap in this format was underwritten by one believer and hundreds of volunteers who thought of cricket as a service worth giving.

There is romance in that story, yes, but there is also a manual for progress: lead with vision, fund with courage, organize with humility, and then let the players write the part of the history that can only be written on grass with bat and ball.

Appendix: the format and essentials at a glance

• Competition structure: Single league, everyone plays everyone.
• Overs per side: 60.
• Ball and kits: Red ball, white clothing.
• Host: England, across a network of county and club grounds.
• Participants: England, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Young England, International XI.
• Champion: England.
• Match conditions to remember: Morning seam, heavyish outfields at some venues, longer middle phases for spinners, and high value placed on strike rotation.
• Organizational cornerstones: Private funding by Sir Jack Hayward, operational leadership by the Women’s Cricket Association, and team buy-in from pioneering national boards.

The first women’s cricket world cup was not an event that happened to women’s cricket. It was an event women’s cricket made happen. That difference is everything. It explains the tone of those early match reports—the blend of admiration and amazement. It explains the faces in team photographs—tired, proud, unguarded. And it explains why, decades on, when the format is slicker and the crowds louder, the spirit of that inaugural summer still feels present whenever the trophy is lifted.