India in Sri Lanka: Sundar Out of the First Test, Bumrah and Sudharsan Awaiting Clearance
The squad for Galle and Colombo has changed since it was named. Washington Sundar misses the first Test through injury, two more places depend on fitness clearance, and India sit fifth in the World Test Championship table with a percentage that leaves little room.
India's two-Test tour of Sri Lanka begins at Galle on August 15, with the second Test at the Sinhalese Sports Club in Colombo from August 23. A four-day warm-up match in Colombo starts on August 7.
Since the 15-man squad was named on July 28, the availability picture has moved, and it has moved in the wrong direction.
Who is missing, and who is not confirmed
Washington Sundar will not play the first Test. The injury has been described by the ICC as a hamstring problem, and elsewhere as a leg injury picked up during the ODI leg of the England tour. Those descriptions are compatible rather than contradictory.
Two further places carry a condition attached. Jasprit Bumrah and Sai Sudharsan are both named subject to fitness clearance from the BCCI Centre of Excellence, with Bumrah's issue reported as a knee injury from the same England series.
For a two-Test tour where the batting was already being rebuilt, having your best fast bowler and one of your form batters both pending clearance is not a small footnote.
The squad as it stands
Shubman Gill (captain), KL Rahul (vice-captain), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Devdutt Padikkal, Rishabh Pant, Sai Sudharsan, Dhruv Jurel, Ravindra Jadeja, Manav Suthar, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Gurnoor Brar and Saransh Jain.
Ravindra Jadeja returns having been out since January with tennis elbow. Saransh Jain has a maiden Test call-up as a spin option. Manav Suthar keeps his place after being named Player of the Match against Afghanistan.
Sri Lanka's squad has not been confirmed. Dhananjaya de Silva has been reported as captain with Kamindu Mendis as his deputy, but we could not find a published Sri Lanka Cricket squad list for this series, so we are not presenting one.
Why the table makes this tour matter
India are fifth in the World Test Championship on 48.15 per cent, from nine Tests: four won, four lost, one drawn. Australia lead on 87.5 per cent.
The detail that hurts is the number of matches. India have played nine Tests in this cycle, more than every side above them apart from Australia. There are fewer chances left to raise a percentage than the teams they are chasing have. Sri Lanka, sixth on 41.67 per cent, have played four.
Two Tests in Sri Lankan conditions against a side built around spin is not a comfortable place to try to fix a percentage.
What our own data can and cannot say here
We hold every ball of IPL 2026, so we can tell you that several of these players arrive off heavy white-ball workloads: Gill made 732 runs in the tournament, Sudharsan 722 with eight fifties, and Jadeja played through the elbow injury that eventually cost him half a year.
What we will not do is dress that up as Test form. T20 runs in April tell you a player is fit and scoring, not that they will handle a turning ball on day four in Galle. We hold no Test ball-by-ball data for these players yet, which is a gap we are actively closing, and until it is closed we would rather name the limit than talk around it.
Squad, injury and schedule details verified on 30 July 2026 against the official squad announcement of 28 July. World Test Championship standings as published on 25 July 2026.