diff --git a/changelogs/fragments/1793-autoselect_datastore-use-regex.yaml b/changelogs/fragments/1793-autoselect_datastore-use-regex.yaml
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..c27403640
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changelogs/fragments/1793-autoselect_datastore-use-regex.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+minor_changes:
+  - autoselect_datastore-use-regex - when using autoselect_datastore, use re.search() to match the datastore instead of substring .find()
diff --git a/plugins/modules/vmware_guest.py b/plugins/modules/vmware_guest.py
index 51e4aba1f..ebe9d865d 100644
--- a/plugins/modules/vmware_guest.py
+++ b/plugins/modules/vmware_guest.py
@@ -2758,7 +2758,7 @@ def select_datastore(self, vm_obj=None):
 
                     if (ds.summary.freeSpace > datastore_freespace) or (ds.summary.freeSpace == datastore_freespace and not datastore):
                         # If datastore field is provided, filter destination datastores
-                        if self.params['disk'][0]['datastore'] and ds.name.find(self.params['disk'][0]['datastore']) < 0:
+                        if self.params['disk'][0]['datastore'] and not re.search(self.params['disk'][0]['datastore'], ds.name):
                             continue
 
                         datastore = ds