Players from the Assam team at net practice at Nehru Stadium in Guwahati on Sunday. Picture by Eastern Projections

Guwahati, March 2: A rejuvenated Assam team will meet Jharkhand in their third outing of the ongoing Vijay Hazare Trophy East Zone national limited-over tournament at N.F. Railway Stadium here tomorrow.

Having gone down to Orissa and Bengal the Assam Cricket Association last night infused more young blood into the squad for the remaining two matches against Jharkhand and Tripura after Sadagopan Ramesh decided to sit out for the two matches.

The new faces in the squad are Baburam Magor, who has been recalled after a four-year layoff, and Pankaj Saikia. Another youngster Tazinder Singh, previously a standby, has replaced Souvik Das who has been out of form with the bat throughout the season. Arlen Konwar has replaced Ramesh as the team skipper and state under-19 team skipper Swarupam Purkayastha was named his deputy.

Saikia has made the cut in place of paceman Krishna Das who has been recuperating from a thigh injury and Magor staged a comeback to replace Ramesh who opted out of the team. Magor had earlier represented the state in five List A tournaments from 1998-99 to 2002-03.

“We have got a very balanced and spirited team. I hope we will be able to turn the tables tomorrow. Our batsmen chased quite a good target and almost succeeded in the match against Orissa. In the second match, it was unfortunate that things went against our expectations,” Konwar said.

Both Magor and Saikia have been in form in the domestic circuit throughout the season and were impressive in the trials too.

On the other hand, Jharkhand, too, will be high on morale after having posted a 96-run victory over Orissa at the same ground on Saturday. Jharkhand had lost their first match against Tripura by five wickets in the NF Railway Stadium.

Tomorrow’s match was scheduled to be played at the Nehru Stadium but was later shifted to the Maligaon ground in order to accommodate the Bengal-Orissa match at Nehru Stadium keeping in view the security of former Team India skipper Sourav Ganguly who will be playing for Bengal tomorrow.