Guwahati, April 10: The Assam Cricket Association (ACA) has cited inexperience as the prime reason for the National Twenty20 Tournament East Zone leg debacle in Calcutta recently.

Asked about the dismal performance in Calcutta, whe-re Assam went down to all the East Zone teams in the league tournament, ACA secretary Bikash Baruah said the ACA could neither blame the players nor the team management because the defeat was “basically due to inexperience”.

“It was a completely new game for our boys who are more used to the longer version of the game. They have been going through the drills for day matches and the 50-over tournaments. Suddenly, they took the field for a very short version of the game,” Baruah said. “Most of the players were playing in the inter-district tournaments involving day matches and they probably found it difficult to play the shorter version all of a sudden.”

Skipper J. Arunkumar endorsed the ACA secretary’s views, observing that the team’s dismal performance was because of a lack of preparation. “We were not properly prepared for the tournament. After all, it was a different ball game altogether,” he said. “Almost all of us were in a hurry to score runs, assuming that 20 overs would be too little to put up a good total. Consequently, we lost wickets quickly,” he added.

The debacle could not have come at a worse time, as the ACA was undergoing criticism for holding a public discussion on Team India’s Carribean debacle.

Incidentally, it was the ACA which instructed players not to take part in the shorter version at grounds which do not comply dimensionally with ICC specifications.