File picture of Lalchand Rajput at a training session with Assam colts in Guwahati

Guwahati, Oct. 15: The ?choker? tag on Assam in senior tournaments can soon be a thing of the past if cricket?s big guns in the state succeed in implementing their radical policies.

The Assam Cricket Association (ACA), for the first time in its 57-year history, is spending nearly Rs 1 crore annually from the BCCI pool to produce youngsters who can be champions in the senior level. Sources said no less than Rs 1.5 crore have been spent in two years for developing cricket in the state.

Though most of the development steps were initiated by current ACA chief Goutam Roy and secretary Bikash Baruah, the seeds were sown by former president Prafulla Kumar Mahanta and secretary Nandan Bezbaruah.

?We hope that our seniors will fetch us laurels within two years. We have started getting returns on the money we had pumped in for training the youngsters. Going by the performance of the juniors in the last two seasons, at least three of our players should make it to national outfits in the forthcoming season,? the ACA secretary said.

Assam can now boast of producing the only double centurion, Swarupam Purkayastha, in the under-15 Polly Umrigar Trophy. Similarly, Parvez Aziz, Shiv Shankar Roy, Abu Naschim Ahmed, Gyan Prakash, Pritam Das, Amzad Ali, Sadek Imran Choudhury and Raj Kapur Yadav are the few other names who took the team to the knockout stages of the Polly Umrigar Trophy and the under-17 Vijay Merchant Trophy last season.

Teenagers like Swarupam, Abu Naschim, Shiv Shanker, Yadav and Aziz have been impressive in various National Cricket Academy camps. Some of them have even impressed the cricket bosses, selectors and senior coach Dinesh Nanavati in the ongoing Ranji Trophy trials.

The list could have been longer had the ACA not clamped a ban on several truant players. The Assam Cricket Academy, considered the ACA?s lame horse, has also stymied the association?s efforts.

Baruah said the selectors have been given a free hand to pick even a 15-year-old to represent the state in the Ranji elite group.

As part the promotional schemes, the ACA gave 21 of its affiliated districts Rs 60,000 per unit to develop turf wickets, provided funds for equipment to the tune of Rs 3 lakh annually and held central coaching camps in Guwahati under national-level coaches.

It has roped in a national-level coach for the Ranji team since 2002-03 and for the Cooch Behar Trophy (under-19) elite group squad from the current season.

The ACA claimed to have spent approximately Rs 35 lakh in holding camps under renowned coaches like Balwinder Singh Sandhu and Lalchand Rajput.

For the Ranji Trophy the ACA spent about Rs 45 lakh last season. The expenses might increase this season following the BCCI stricture that a national-level coach, assisted by a physio and physical trainer, must be part of an elite group team, ACA treasurer Ghanashyam Baruah said.

Will the monsoon drills for the Ranji probables, the talent hunts and fitness training under physios Kinjal Suratwala and Krishna Kumar pay dividends? The question will probably be answered when Assam play Baroda in their Ranji elite Group B campaign opener here on November 7.