The final Indian squad for the ICC Champions Trophy, to be held in June in England and Wales, is to be picked by the national selectors here on May 4, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced on Monday.
The five-man selection panel headed by Sandeep Patil will prune the list of 30 probables already selected to half its size for the June 6-23 tournament.
The selectors had dropped senior players Virender Sehwag and Harbhajan Singh when they picked the probables on April 6, but have the option to choose players from outside the list, according to an ICC source.
India and South Africa are scheduled to kick off the contest on June 6 at the SophiaGardens at Cardiff, Wales in a Group B match.
India are to take on the West Indies at the Kennington Oval in London on June 11 and then conclude the four-team group engagement on June 15 against arch-rivals Pakistan at Edgbaston, Birmingham.
Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Sri Lanka form Group A.
The top two teams from each group would progress to the semi-finals scheduled on June 19 and 20 at the Kennington Oval and SophiaGardens respectively with the winners advancing to the June 23 final to be played at Edgbaston.
The list of 30 Indian probables: Murali Vijay, Shikhar Dhawan, Gautam Gambhir, Unmukt Chand, Virat Kohli, Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina, Rohit Sharma, Manoj Tiwary, Ajinkya Rahane, A Rayudu, Kedar Jadhav, MS Dhoni, Wriddhiman Saha, Dinesh Karthik, R Ashwin, Amit Mishra, Ravindra Jadeja, Jalaj Saxena, Parvez Rasool, Ishant Sharma, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Ashok Dinda, Umesh Yadav, Mohammed Shami, Irfan Pathan, Vinay Kumar, Paveen Kumar, IC Pandey and Sidharth Kaul.
