Sri Lanka will leave players out of the Twenty20 squad if they refuse to travel to Lahore

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Sri Lanka’s chief selector Graeme Labrooy has said that all players who refuse to travel to Lahore will miss the Twenty20 series against Pakistan.

The first two matches of the series will be held in Abu Dhabi, but the third and final match will take place in Lahore on October 29.

The match will be a historic one as it will be the first time Pakistan will be taking on a Full Member nation, other than Zimbabwe, on home soil.

“The understanding is that we choose the same squad for the series, in fairness to the players who have put their hands up for the Lahore match,” Labrooy was quoted as saying by ESPNcricinfo.

Should this be the case, Sri Lanka will have a new captain for the Twenty20 series as regular skipper Upul Tharanga has already made it clear that he is not willing to travel to Lahore.

Labrooy confirmed that Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) are talking to players individually to get an idea of who is ready to go to Lahore.

“At the moment the board is talking to each of the players individually, so the selectors don’t know exactly who is available now,” Labrooy said. “But we should know that by Friday morning. Two SLC executive committee members have been contacting the players.”

The last time Sri Lanka were in Pakistan was when their team bus was attacked by militants in March 2009.

Since then, Pakistan have had to play all their home games in the United Arab Emirates, but they hosted Zimbabwe for a limited overs series in May 2015 before finally getting a big breakthrough last month when the World XI travelled to the country for a three-match Twenty20 series.

During that series, the World XI was given presidential-level security. Sri Lanka have been promised the same for the third Twenty20 International.