LONDON — Two names appeared on England’s squad lists for the first time on Friday, and one name that selectors could not yet bring themselves to include appeared nowhere. Aneurin Donald, the Warwickshire opener who has spent the better part of a decade building county records without receiving the international call those records seemed to demand, earned a maiden T20I place in England’s squads for the home series against Sri Lanka. Henry Crocombe, a Sussex seamer who has never played international cricket, earned an ODI place alongside him. Brydon Carse was absent from both groups.
The ECB confirmed on Friday that England would play three T20 internationals and three one-day internationals against Sri Lanka across September, with the T20Is running from September 15 to 19 at Southampton, Cardiff, and Manchester, and the ODIs following from September 22 to 27 at Chester-le-Street, Leeds, and The Oval. Both series come as England’s white-ball programme returns after the summer’s Test commitments, and both squads carry a selection story that goes beyond the match schedule.
Donald is 29. The son of Allan Donald, South Africa’s most feared fast bowler of the 1990s, he chose England as his cricketing home early in his career and Warwickshire as his county, and has been one of the most consistent top-order batters in the T20 Blast for three seasons running. The international recognition has been slow to arrive, a fact that has puzzled those who have watched him dismantle county attacks at Edgbaston. Friday’s announcement ends that wait. He is listed as an opener in the T20I group, a natural fit for a format where Warwickshire have deployed his aggression and timing most ruthlessly at the top of the order.
Crocombe’s selection is quieter but no less significant to the player. The Sussex seamer has been building his case through domestic white-ball performances rather than headlines, and the ODI squad announcement places him alongside the established names that England’s format rotation now regularly turns to. He has not played international cricket at any level. That changes in September. A maiden call is a maiden call regardless of its fanfare, and England’s selectors have not been known in recent years for being sentimental about selection: if Crocombe is in the sixteen, it is because they think he can do something with the ball in conditions that suit him.
The name that is not on either list is Brydon Carse. As with England’s Test selection earlier in the summer, the Durham all-rounder is absent from both white-ball groups, and the England and Wales Cricket Board has not updated its position on the disciplinary exclusion from England’s Test squads that began after an incident at a Derby bar during the third Test. Selectors have said the process is ongoing. Friday offered no new clarity on when it might conclude. Carse, who was one of England’s most improved performers in the first half of the 2026 Test summer, remains in a holding pattern while the review runs.
The squad for the T20Is is sixteen: Harry Brook captains, with Jos Buttler and Jofra Archer both included along with Gus Atkinson, Sonny Baker, Tom Banton, James Coles, Jordan Cox, Liam Dawson, Donald, Ben Duckett, Will Jacks, Saqib Mahmood, Jamie Overton, Adil Rashid, and Josh Tongue. The ODI group carries similar depth, with Rehan Ahmed, Joe Root, and Crocombe added while Donald, Mahmood, and Coles make way. Brook leads both sides. The squads are larger than England typically travel with for bilateral white-ball series, a reflection of how selectors plan to manage workloads across a back-to-back format schedule.
Brook’s captaincy across both squads has become one of the quieter certainties of England’s 2026 season. With the Test summer closed and Ben Stokes’s departure for franchise cricket in Australia confirmed, Brook holds the white-ball leadership with a settled core around him. Buttler’s presence in the T20I squad does raise a question selectors appear content to leave unanswered: the former white-ball captain is listed without any leadership designation. The squad sheet says Brook captains. Buttler’s exact role beyond his batting position is not stated.
Root’s inclusion in the ODI squad, by contrast, carries no ambiguity. The former Test captain has made himself consistently available for white-ball cricket this summer and earns his place on form and experience. Named alongside Rashid and Duckett in what is a deep ODI middle order, Root gives England options in a batting unit that should have the range to test a Sri Lanka side arriving at the end of their own bilateral programme.
The series runs through September. England Women have already set the tone for the month’s cricket on home soil, with England Women’s dominant form this summer serving as the standard against which the men’s white-ball sides will now be measured. Two maiden callups on the same announcement day, and a significant absence on both lists, is how England have signalled their intentions before the first ball of September’s white-ball programme is bowled.
As the ICC confirmed in publishing the full fixture details for both series, the schedule runs back-to-back through September 27, giving England’s management limited time between matches to respond to form or fitness developments. Donald and Crocombe will have their chances. Carse will have to wait.
Related Posts
