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India v Sri Lanka: first ODI moved from Delhi to Visakhapatnam, set for Sunday, 13 December at the ACA-VDCA Stadium

The BCCI has shifted the opening match of India's one-day series against Sri Lanka to Visakhapatnam after the Delhi association asked for a change of venue.

The ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium in Visakhapatnam seen from a hilltop, with the city and hills behind it

India’s one-day series against Sri Lanka will now open in Visakhapatnam. The BCCI said on Thursday, 5 November, that the first ODI, fixed for Sunday, 13 December, now goes to the ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium instead of Delhi, with play due to start at 2 pm.

The board made the change at the request of the Delhi and District Cricket Association. In its media advisory, the BCCI said the Delhi body had pointed to the chance of bad weather in December and to renovation work it plans at its ground.

Six matches in 15 days

The rest of the tour is unchanged. After Visakhapatnam, the two sides move to Bengaluru for the second ODI on Wednesday, 16 December, and to Ahmedabad for the third on Saturday, 19 December. All three one-dayers begin at 2 pm. Three T20 Internationals then start at 7 pm: Rajkot on Tuesday, 22 December, Cuttack on Thursday, 24 December, and Pune on Sunday, 27 December.

A ground with a long ODI record

The Visakhapatnam stadium, run by the Andhra Cricket Association, holds about 27,500 spectators and had staged 11 men’s ODIs by January 2026. The first of them, against Pakistan on 5 April 2005, is remembered for MS Dhoni’s 148, his first hundred in one-day cricket.

Sri Lanka are not strangers to the venue. Chamara Silva’s unbeaten 107 carried them to victory there in February 2007, and India won the December 2017 meeting, when Shikhar Dhawan finished on 100 not out. The highest ODI total at the ground is India’s 387 for 5 against West Indies in December 2019, the day Rohit Sharma made 159. The most recent men’s ODI there was against South Africa in December 2025.

India have not yet named a squad for the Sri Lanka series. The team is touring New Zealand, where the third ODI is in Hamilton on Tuesday, 10 November and the first Test starts in Wellington on 19 November.

File photo. Photo: Drashokk / CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

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