Australia Women return to Sri Lanka for a first bilateral ODI series in more than a decade

Sri Lanka will host Australia for three one-day internationals in Dambulla in December, the tourists' first bilateral ODI series on the island in more than a decade

Sri Lanka Cricket has confirmed that the Australia women's team will play three one-day internationals at the Rangiri Dambulla International Stadium in December, ending a long absence from the island.

The matches fall on December 15, 18 and 20, packed into six days at a single venue, with the squad due to arrive in Sri Lanka on December 10.

All three games form part of the ICC Women's Championship 2025-2029 cycle, so the results will count towards the standings of that competition as well as the series.

Three matches in six days

Dambulla will stage the entire series, sparing both squads the internal travel that usually breaks up a white-ball tour of Sri Lanka.

The schedule leaves two clear days between the first and second matches, and a single day off before the third on December 20.

Sri Lanka Cricket said the Australians are due to land five days before the opener, giving the tourists close to a week on the ground to adjust to subcontinental conditions.

Australia's previous tour of Sri Lanka came in 2016, and no bilateral one-day series between the teams has followed it.

Part of the Championship cycle

The three results will be logged against the ICC Women's Championship table rather than counting only towards a series scoreline.

Both boards confirmed that status when the tour was announced, placing the December matches on the same footing as the rest of the cycle's bilateral commitments.

The fourth edition of the Championship runs to April 2029 and is the main qualification route to the 2029 World Cup, with eleven teams each playing eight three-match series, four at home and four away.

Australia entered the cycle seeded third and Sri Lanka fifth, on their finishing positions at the 2025 World Cup.

Seven years since the last one-dayer

By the time the first ball is bowled, Australia and Sri Lanka will not have met in one-day cricket for more than seven years.

Their last series in the format was a three-match assignment in Brisbane in October 2019, won 3-0 by the hosts. The third of those wins took Australia to a world-record 18th consecutive ODI victory.

The sides were scheduled to meet again at the 2025 World Cup, but that match in Colombo was washed out without a result.

Nineteen meetings without a Sri Lankan win

Australia have won all 19 white-ball matches played between the two teams since December 2000.

The sequence takes in both one-day and Twenty20 internationals, and covers fixtures played in Australia and in Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka have not beaten them in either format in the 26 years since, and the Dambulla series is the next chance to change that.

Molineux's side arrive in form

Australia have lost only one of their past 14 ODIs, the World Cup semi-final against India last October that ended their defence of the 50-over title.

They are six from six in the format in 2026, sweeping India at home before a second 3-0 win in the Caribbean, where Sophie Molineux's captaincy began.

Molineux's side also hold the T20 World Cup, and reach Sri Lanka after a home block of three ODIs against Bangladesh in Brisbane from October 9 to 14.

A three-match T20I series at North Sydney from October 18 to 22 follows, before a gap of roughly seven weeks ahead of the flight to Sri Lanka.

Australia are due to land in Sri Lanka on December 10, five days before the series opens in Dambulla.

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