Yuvraj Singh, Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Harbhajan Singh and Zaheer Khan have all been omitted from the 30-man preliminary squad for the 2015 World Cup.
The five-member selection panel, headed by Sandeep Patil, announced the list of 30 probables in Mumbai on Thursday.
Yuvraj, Sehwag, Gambhir, Harbhajan and Zaheer were some of the standout performers of the 2011 World Cup, which India won. All five players have not figured in ODIs for more than a year.
MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina and Ravichandran Ashwin are the only players retained from the team which played the 2011 showpiece event.
The selectors also decided to keep the 14 players who featured in the last two ODIs against Sri Lanka, except Vinay Kumar, while the players who were in the squad for the first three matches have also been included.
Manoj Tiwary, Manish Pandey, Sanju Samson, Parvez Rasool, Mohit Sharma, Ashok Dinda and Kuldeep Yadav have also made the cut.
The preliminary list will be pruned down to the final 15-man squad by 7 January and will be sent to the ICC ahead of the World Cup, which kicks off on 14 February.
Yuvraj, who won the Player of the Tournament in the 2011 edition of the competition with his all-round performances, has been in awful form with the bat of late. The 32-year-old managed just one half century in the recent Vijay Hazare Trophy. And with Ravindra Jadeja and youngster Akshar Patel continuing to impress with slow left arm spin, Yuvraj's chances of making it to the squad as an impact bowler was also slim.
Meanwhile, Sehwag was touted as a batsman suited for Australian conditions but the veteran did not do himself any favours by producing poor displays in the North Zone one-day league. Gautam Gambhir, on the other hand, has been in relatively good form but his omission also does not come as a big surprise, with the likes of Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Ajinkya Rahane and Robin Uthappa battling for the two opening slots.
Among the bowlers, Harbhajan has not been on the radar for some time, with Rasool featuring high up in the pecking order after first-choice spinner Ashwin. Zaheer, meanwhile, has been struggling with fitness-related issues for a long time now and was also not expected to make it.
30-Man Probables: MS Dhoni (captain), Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma, Ajinkya Rahane, Robin Uthappa, Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina, Ambati Rayudu, Kedar Jadhav, Manoj Tiwary, Manish Pandey, Wriddhiman Saha, Sanju Samson, Ravichandran Ashwin, Parvez Rasool, Karn Sharma, Amit Mishra, Ravindra Jadeja, Akshar Patel, Ishant Sharma, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav, Varun Aaron, Dhawal Kulkarni, Stuart Binny, Mohit Sharma, Ashok Dinda, Kuldeep Yadav and Murali Vijay.
