Sri Lanka Netball team will meet Jamaica in their first game of the Netball World Cup today in Cape town, South Africa.
As of August 12 of last year, the five current champions, New Zealand, Australia, Jamaica, England and Uganda, are the teams that have directly qualified for the World Cup.
The host South Africa also entered the World Cup as a directly qualified team.
The remaining 10 teams of Sri Lanka, Singapore, Tongo, Fiji, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Scotland, Wales, Barbados along with Trinidad and Tobago are the teams that joined the World Cup through qualifying tournaments.
The 16 teams will play against each other under 4 groups in the preliminary round.
The Sri Lankan team, which secured a place in this year’s World Cup by becoming the Asian champions, will compete in Group ‘C’ which includes hosts South Africa, Jamaica and Wales.
This is the 11th time that the Sri Lankan team nicknamed as ‘The Lionesses’ will participate in the World Cup.
Currently ranked 15th in the world, Sri Lanka joined the last World Cup Tournament in 2019 where they finished 15th.
The previous ‘Ceylon’ team finished 9th in the first World Cup held in 1963 which is the highest position the country has achieved in a World Cup so far.
Sri Lanka will play against South Africa tomorrow (29) and against Wales on Sunday (30).
New Zealand won the championship by defeating Australia in the last World Cup held in England in 2019.
So far, New Zealand has won 5 World Cups while Australia has won 10.
Sri Lanka Netball Team: Skipper Gayanjali Amarawansa, deputy skipper Dulangi Wannitilleka, Thisala Algama, Chaturangi Jayasuriya, Semini Alwis, Gayani Dissanayake, Malmi Hettiarachchi, Bhashini de Silva, Rashmi Perera, Kaushalya Wijesuriya and Tharjini Shivalingam.
