No place in India Champions Trophy squad for Virender Sehwag, Harbhajan Singh

Explosive opener Virender Sehwag is one of a number of big-name players to have been left out of India's squad for the ICC Champions Trophy in England in June.

The dashing opener has been in poor form in recent months and was also dropped from their Test team for the last two matches against Australia last month.

Sehwag is not the only high-profile name to miss out on the 30-strong selection with spinners Harbhajan Singh and Pragyan Ojha, seamer Zaheer Khan and batsman Cheteshwar Pujara also omitted.

The 34-year-old still holds the world record score in one-day internationals, with his 219 against the West Indies in 2011 one of only two double centuries in the 50-over game, the other belonging to Sachin Tendulkar who retired from limited overs international cricket late last year.

Test reject Gautam Gambhir has been given a place in the squad which also includes a number of untried youngsters in Jalaj Saxena, Siddharth Kaul, Kedar Jadhav and Ishwar Yadav.

Fit-again Umesh Yadav and Praveen Kumar, who was banned by the BCCI for a short period earlier this year for misconduct during a Corporate Trophy match, have also been included among the probables, which will be whittled down to a final 15 in May.

And there is a place for Jammu and Kashmir all-rounder Parvez Rasool, who becomes the first player from the region to join the senior international ranks.

Preliminary squad: Dhoni (capt), Vijay, Dhawan, Gambhir, Chand, Kohli, Y Singh, Raina, R Sharma, Tiwary, Rahane, Rayudu, Jadhav, Saha, Karthik, Ashwin, Mishra, R Jadeja, Saxena, Rasool, I Sharma, B Kumar, Dinda, Yadav, Ahmed, Pathan, V Kumar, P Kumar, Pandey, Kaul.