England women put Sri Lanka on a backfoot in the 1st ODI at Colombo. The visitors defeated the home team by 8 wickets. Heather Knight and Natalie Sciver racked up the winning runs sparring 123 balls in the inning. The team lost only two opening wickets. Lauren Winfield and Tammy Beaumont were removed while the chase reached 89. However, this was already halfway down the chase to 169. Both the openers scored with excellent strike rate. They left much room for the following players to amass runs without any pressure. Captain Knight and Sciver brought up the remaining runs faster than the early players.

In the chase, opener Lauren Winfield scored 33 off 41 balls. The partnership was broken in the 14th over when the player was dismissed by Jayangani. The chase was at 77 with the captain entering the crease. Beaumont played around three overs more to score a total of 41 off 49 balls. She was removed by Ranaweera. Sri Lanka's successes in the inning remained restricted only to these two wickets as they could not restrict the flow of runs in to the tally of the following players. Finally, England Women nicked the victory in the thirtieth over.

Sri Lanka women had a good start, but it was slower than that of England's. The opening partnership was broken when Hasini Perera was down in the 16th over. The score was 50 and the player contributed 26 runs of it. Her strike rate was 47.27. Nipuni Hansika, who followed her after a couple of overs, also scored 26 off 51 runs. The start was good for the team, but the run rate slowed down considerably as the match progressed. In the 47th over, Sri Lanka was at 150 for 5 wickets. In the over, the team lost two players, Kumarihami and Weerakkody. Thus, the numbers fell to 6 for 152 runs leaving paltry overs and the last wickets.

Katherine Brunt and Heather Knight took two wickets each. All the bowlers maintained a strict economy throughout the inning. It was only Nat Sciver who gave out 12 runs off the two overs she bowled. Langston, Hazel and Hartley claimed a single wicket each. The Sri Lankan team is injury ridden, with four of its key players out from the match due to various injury issues. Shashikala Siriwardene is with a knee injury, Udeshika Prabodhani is out due to shoulder injury, Yasodara Mendis was hit on a finger and Eshani Lokasuriyage got injured on her ankle.