Mumbai: India's out-of-favour senior cricketers like Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh and Gautam Gambhir were on Thursday omitted from the 30-member probables list for next year's World Cup with the selectors reposing faith on the young guns to retain the title in Australia and New Zealand.
Off-spinner Harbhajan Singh and pacer Zaheer Khan, who were a part of the 2011 World Cup winning team along with Sehwag, Yuvraj and Gambhir, were also left out of the list, putting a question mark on their future given that none of the five have featured in an ODI for the last one year.
Apart from the famed five, pacers Ashish Nehra and Munaf Patel, spinner Piyush Chawla and all-rounder Yusuf Pathan were also among the players axed from the list announced by BCCI Secretary Sanjay Patel after a meeting of the selection committee.
Jammu and Kashmir all-rounder Parveez Rasool, Uttar Pradesh spinner Kuldeep Yadav, batting duo of Manish Pandey and Kedar Jadhav along with spinner Axar Patel benefitted from the overhaul, riding on their consistent performance in the domestic circuit.
With the selectors opting to ignore the out-of-favour seniors, there were no major surprises on offer in the list of probables.
The selectors included all-rounder Stuart Binny and in-form batsman Manoj Tiwary and young wicketkeeper-batsman Sanju Samson in the list which would be further pruned to 15 in early January ahead of the World Cup starting February 14.
Eleven players from the 2011 World Cup-winning squad will not be seen in action when the team goes Down Under to defend the trophy. While most of them have been ignored for poor form, Sachin Tendulkar has retired and pacer S Sreesanth has been banned for spot-fixing.