Sri Lanka's women won their only Test and waited decades for a trophy
Sri Lanka's women have played exactly one Test match, in April 1998, and they won it. The same side spent years as outsiders at World Cups, then stunned top-ranked England in 2013, beat them on English soil a decade later and finally claimed a first title at home in 2024.
The team entered international cricket in 1997, losing a three-match one-day series to the Netherlands 2–1 as a warm-up for that year's World Cup in India. They reached the quarter-finals there before England knocked them out. They have appeared at every World Cup since, and at every Women's T20 World Cup too, though never beyond the first round of the shorter tournament.
In 1998 Pakistan visited and lost all three one-dayers as well as a Test, the first for both nations and still Sri Lanka's only one. Chamani Seneviratna dominated that match in Colombo, scoring an unbeaten 105 and taking 5 for 31 as her side piled up 305 for 9 declared. The Dutch returned in 1999 and were beaten in all five games, and clean sweeps followed against Pakistan at home in 2002 and West Indies away the next year. They hosted the first Women's Asia Cup in 2004, and were runners-up to India at the second edition in Pakistan.
The 2013 World Cup brought a genuine shock. Sri Lanka, rank outsiders, defeated England, then the world's top team, in a group game, went on to beat India too and finished fifth, still their best showing at the event. Harsha de Silva returned as head coach in August 2018 after a five-year break. When the pandemic wiped out the 2021 qualifying tournament, rankings decided entry, and Sri Lanka secured a place in the 2022–25 Women's Championship.
Two recent results stand out. In 2023 they won a T20 series in England 2–1, the first time England had lost a bilateral T20 series to anyone but Australia since 2010. Then in 2024, before home crowds in Dambulla, they won the Women's T20 Asia Cup for the first time, chasing 166 against India with eight balls left and eight wickets standing.
Source: Sri Lanka women's national cricket team
