Former captain Diana Edulji became the first Indian woman cricketer to be inducted into the ICC Hall of Fame alongside World Cup-winning Indian and Sri Lankan duo of Virender Sehwag and Aravinda de Silva. (Cricket News | Full Coverage)
"It indeed is a great honour to be the first Indian Women Cricketer to be inducted and join a galaxy of cricketers, male and female from across the world," the 67-year-old said in an ICC release.
She played 54 matches for India across three decades (between 1976 and 1993) and made her mark as a slow left-arm orthodox spinner taking more than 100 wickets. Edulji played 20 Tests, scoring 404 runs, and taking 63 wickets at an average of 25.77. From 34 ODIs, she scored 211 runs, and bagged 46 wickets at an average of 16.84.
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Here is all you need to know about the trailblazer cricketer from India
Born on January 26, 1956 in Bombay (now Mumbai), Diana Edulji was born in a Parsi family. In her early days, Edulji played cricket with a tennis ball in her railway colony where she resided. She also tried her hands at Basketball and Table Tennis at national level before completely switching to Cricket.
Cricket was a men's sport back in the day and especially for women in India, it was more of a sport of enjoyment rather than being part of. But a young Edulji played cricket games with boys from Badhwar Park that led her to join the Albies in 1971, the first club for female cricketers in Mumbai and it was named after Mrs Alu Bamjee, the founder of the club.
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The Women’s Cricket Association of India (WCAI) was formed later in 1974 and Edulji came through the ranks and was later part of the historic Test match against West Indies in 1976.
Edulji went on to captain the national team in 1978 and at the time of hanging up her boots in early 1990s, she held the record of having delivered the most deliveries by any woman in the history of Test cricket and only two women have taken more wickets than her.
In 1983, she was awarded India's then greatest sports honour award, the Arjuna Award and then in 2002 was awarded the civilian honour of Padma Shri.
Moreover, apart from the cricket life on the field, she was also known to be a vociferous person off it. Edulji's sharp attack on the coveted Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) was quite know when she stated that they should change its name to MCP ("male chauvinist pigs").
Edulji was also appointed in the BCCI administration panel by the Supreme Court of India on 30th January 2017. She also became the first woman to be appointed to the BCCI selection panel.
