Mumbai: Four veterans -- Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan Singh -- were on Thursday omitted from India's World Cup 30-member probables list which includes young spinners Axar Patel and Kuldeep Yadav. Another seasoned cricketer Gautam Gambhir has also been left out with the selectors reposing faith on the young guns to retain the title in Australia and New Zealand. The decision to ignore the veteran players, who were a part of the 2011 World Cup winning team along with Sehwag, Yuvraj and Gambhir, has put 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.
Apart from Axar Patel and Kuldeep Yadav, Jammu and Kashmir all-rounder Parveez Rasool and batting duo of Manish Pandey and Kedar Jadhav benefitted from the overhaul, riding on their consistent performance in the domestic circuit. With the selectors opting to ignore 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 on January 7, five weeks 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.
India World Cup probables: Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma, Ajinkya Rahane, Robin Uthappa, Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina, Ambati Rayudu, Kedar Jadhav, Manoj Tiwary, Manish Pandey, Wriddhiman Saha, Sanju Samson, R Ashwin, Parveez Rasool, Karn Sharma, Amit Mishra, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Ishant Sharma, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav, Varun Aaron, Dhawal Kulkarni, Stuart Binny, Mohit Sharma, Ashoke Dinda, Kuldeep Yadav and Murali Vijay.
