The five-member selection panel headed by Krishnamachari Srikkanth omitted Pathan brothers Yusuf and Irfan along with out-of-form Ravindra Jadeja from the 15-man squad.
Sachin Tendulkar has made himself unavailable for the short series involving five ODIs and a lone T20 game against the hosts commencing July 21, while medium pacer Praveen Kumar is another player who has been dropped.
All four dropped players were part of India's unsuccessful Asia Cup campaign in Bangladesh in March, where India failed to reach the final.
Srikkanth, talking to reporters later, said the five selectors held a long discussion over the happenings in the last season that saw India being humbled 4-0 in England and Australia in the Tests and also failing to live up to the one-day world champions' tag in the two countries as well as in the Asia Cup that followed in Dhaka.
"One good thing is that we had Indian cricket team coach Duncan Fletcher with us. We had a lot of discussions about the pros and cons, about what happened, what did not happen, what's true and what's not true.
"It was a very healthy discussion with Duncan Fletcher. We wanted to sort out everything and make sure this season starts with a bang," he explained.
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Left unsaid was the controversy over the rotation policy practiced for seniors during the Australian tour which saw captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his senior teammates Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir singing different tunes over its introduction.
Dhoni did not attend the meeting and, according to selection panel sources, is in the US. (More)