Apart from the highly rated Ashraful, all-rounder Sanwar Hossain and left-arm paceman Monjurul Islam were also left out from the camp that would begin at the Bangabandhu National Stadium from October 1 under the supervision of coach Dav Whatmore.

"They have been left out because of their performance or the lack of it," said chief selector Faruque Ahmed while talking to the Daily Star Sport.

19-year-old Ashraful, the youngest centurion on Test debut, had only been dropped once for a series before his latest omission.

After his astonishing debut innings against Sri Lanka exactly two years ago when he scored 114, the prodigious right-hander never lived up to that promise. Till date, has scored only 592 runs in 15 Tests at an average of 20.41.

After a miserable tour of Australia, Ashraful made an encouraging 77 in the first innings of the second Test against Pakistan in Peshawar during the Tigers' recently concluded tour. But his next three innings' fetched 7, 12 and 3 runs. In the one-day international series, Ashraful was absolutely down in the dumps after losing his wicket in the very first over in three consecutive matches.

His ODI statistics is also poor. Having played 24 games, Ashraful has scored a meager 326 runs with two fifties.

Sanwar played only one Test in Pakistan and made 15 and 3. He also featured in the first ODI in Multan and scored 19 runs. He failed to make any impact with his off spin bowling in those outings.

Monjurul couldn't impress the selectors following his innocuous performance in Pakistan. He was sent back home along with Javed Omar and Anwar Hossain Munir after the Test series was over.

Other noticeable absentees in the preliminary list were former national captain Naimur Rahman, and openers Shahriar Hossain and Al-Shahriar.

The selection committee have decided to give last domestic season's top run-getter Moniruzzaman, wicketkeeper Mohammad Salim, off spinner Fahim Muntasir and leg spinner Mosaddek Hossain a chance to stake their claim in the Bangladesh squad.

Faruque also revealed that no new player will be considered apart from the 20 named for the England series.

PRIMARY SQUAD

Hannan Sarkar, Javed Omar, Habibul Bashar, Rajin Saleh, Alok Kapali, Mushfiqur Rahman, Khaled Mashud, Khaled Mahmud, Mashrafee-bin-Mortuza, Tapas Kumar Baishya, Mohammad Rafique, Tushar Imran, Hasibul Hossain, Alamgir Kabir, Moniruzzaman, Anwar Hossain Munir, Tariq Aziz Khan, Fahim Muntasir, Mohammad Salim and Mosaddek Hossain.