Sri Lanka have named their squads for a white-ball tour of England running September 15 to 27 — three T20Is at Southampton, Cardiff and Manchester, followed by three ODIs at Chester-le-Street, Leeds and The Oval — with a leadership twist attached. Kusal Mendis was initially named captain of both squads, only for a hamstring injury picked up playing in the Lanka Premier League in July to rule him out of the T20I series entirely, handing the T20I captaincy to Charith Asalanka instead.
Mendis's situation is the headline detail of the squad announcement. Named as leader across both the ODI and T20I squads, he was subsequently ruled out of the T20I leg — meaning he retains the ODI captaincy while Asalanka takes over for the three T20Is that open the tour. Seamer Binura Fernando was also ruled out of the series through injury. It leaves Sri Lanka fielding two different captains across the same trip, an extra layer of leadership continuity for selectors to manage through the tour.
The squads lean on a core of experienced campaigners — Pathum Nissanka, Kamindu Mendis, Dasun Shanaka and Wanindu Hasaranga all feature, alongside a bowling attack built around Maheesh Theekshana, Dushmantha Chameera and Eshan Malinga. But there are two notable new names: off-spinner Tharindu Rathnayake earns his maiden white-ball call-up in the T20I squad, and leg-spinner Sachindu Colombage, 28, receives his first international call-up in the ODI squad — a relatively late international debut opportunity for a specialist wrist-spinner.
Sri Lanka arrive in England shortly after England's Test side wrapped up a dominant series over Pakistan, though the white-ball squad England field against Sri Lanka is a separate group entirely. Even so, the tour gives Sri Lanka's newer names a chance to test themselves in English conditions against a white-ball setup that has had a full home summer of match practice behind it by the time the series starts.
Beyond the results, this series is as much about squad depth as anything else — Rathnayake and Colombage's inclusion suggests selectors are using a lower-stakes bilateral tour to widen the pool of spin options available heading toward Sri Lanka's next major assignments. Analysis: naming two specialist spinners uncapped at this stage of a rebuild points to a side still searching for its next generation of slow bowlers behind the established Hasaranga–Theekshana pairing, rather than simply filling out squad numbers.
Asalanka's spell in charge of the T20I side is also worth watching independent of the results. Sri Lanka have shuffled white-ball leadership repeatedly in recent years, and however this series goes, it hands Asalanka a genuine audition in conditions very different from home — English white-ball pitches in mid-September, offering seam movement early and generally true batting conditions later in an innings, are a fair examination of a stand-in captain's tactical instincts with both bat and ball. Mendis, watching on for the T20I leg before returning to lead the ODIs, will have his own interest in how the side he was originally picked to captain performs without him.
The three T20Is and three ODIs run through September 27. Ball-by-ball coverage is available on SportGod's live matches page, with more international squad news on SportGod's blog and fantasy contests running in SportGod's free games.
Squad lists, the captaincy change and player debuts are verified against same-day reporting from Sri Lanka Cricket and the ICC, current as of September 9, 2026.
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