SL women to host India in September

• Sri Lanka women to host India for three ODIs and five T20Is

 The Sri Lanka women’s team are set to host India in three ODIs and five T20Is in September, Sri Lanka Cricket has announced.

The Indian team are expected to arrive in the island on 7 September with the first two ODIs set to take place in Galle on 11 and 13 September. The action will then move to Katunayake for the final ODI on 16 September and the first of the T20Is on 19 September. The next three T20Is will be played in Colombo at the Colts Cricket Club grounds, before the teams return to Katunayake for the final match on 25 September.

The ODI portion of the tour will count towards the International Women’s Championship (IWC), a ranking system which determines the three automatic qualifiers for the Women’s World Cup in 2021. 

India, who are currently two places above eighth-placed Sri Lanka in the IWC rankings, come into the tour on the back of a 0-3 home series loss to top-ranked Australia, while Sri Lanka have lost their first two IWC series - away to the West Indies and at home to Pakistan. 

However,there is no question that India begin as favourites, having lost just one of 26 ODIs against Sri Lanka. The home side fare only marginally better in the shorter format, winning three of 12 T20s. The last bilateral series between the sides was in India in 2016, which saw India whitewash both the ODI and T20I series 3-0.(MB)