(From top) Roy and Saikia. Picture by Eastern Projections

Guwahati, March 4: Hosts and defending champions Assam will meet Tripura in their last league match of the Vijay Hazare Trophy East Zone limited overs cricket tournament at the NF Railway Stadium tomorrow with nothing to play for except pride.

The hosts have already bowed out of the tournament, losing to Orissa, Bengal and Jharkhand in a row.

While Assam will try to salvage some pride from the last one-dayer tomorrow, their opponents Tripura will fight with all their might to make it to the knockout stage. Tripura will be able to make it to the next stage only if they defeat Assam with a bonus point and Jharkhand go down to Bengal and concede a bonus point in tomorrow’s second match at the Nehru Stadium.

Assam are languishing at the bottom of the points tally after conceding a bonus point to Bengal in their second match at the NF Railway Stadium on Thursday. Tripura, on the other hand, are on four points after beating Jharkhand in the campaign opener on February 26. If they earn a bonus point from their match against the hosts tomorrow, they will earn four additional points to keep their hopes alive.

Jharkhand are on five points.

The hosts will have to be cautious tomorrow as Tripura had surprised them in a Ranji Trophy Plate Group match earlier this season.

There’s a chance that the weather will play spoilsport tomorrow, the weather forecast for tonight and tomorrow being intermittent rain. After training in the morning today, both teams were confined indoors.

The match will be an opportunity for promising youngsters like Swarupam Purkayastha, Shiv Shankar Roy, Pankaj Saikia and Palashjyoti Das to try and impress the East Zone selectors for the Deodhar Trophy zonal team. The selectors will meet in a few days to select the team for the Deodhar Trophy. Das, who represented the zone in the Duleep Trophy recently, is yet to play an impressive knock in the tournament.

With nothing to lose, sources in the Assam team management said there could be few changes in the playing XI against Tripura and a few youngsters could be given the opportunity to play. Youngsters’ Jyoti Medhi and spinner Pankaj Tamuli have so far not played any of the matches.

The Tripura side is likely to retain the team that played against Bengal on Saturday.