(FromTop) Fresh face Jason Lamare, comeback man Sazzad Hussain and axed Subhrajit Saikia

Guwahati, Dec. 22: Assam, walking on the razor?s edge in the Ranji Trophy elite group, will bank on young shoulders to salvage pride in the last and away match against Hyderabad.

The Assam Cricket Association (ACA) today named a 14-member squad recalling Sazzad Hussain and inducting youngsters Jason Lamare and Baburam Magor for the December 31 to January 3 match in Hyderabad. Syed Zakaria Zuffri retained the captaincy.

Hussain, who was dropped for the Maharashtra match, will replace ?non-performing? opener Subhrajit Saikia, while the two new faces made it to the line-up because Parvez Aziz and Chandan Rawat were in Pune for the Cooch Behar Trophy (under-19) tournament.

Rawat is the captain, while his deputy is Aziz.

With both Aziz and Saikia out of the team, Hussain, who was among the reserves for the first three matches, might get an opportunity to open the innings with Parag Das in Hyderabad.

?It?s better to give a chance to the youngsters, rather than bank on the non-performing seniors. We decided at the recent governing body meeting to replace the non-performing players with youngsters. This is why Lamare and Magor were inducted,? ACA secretary Bikash Baruah said. ?It?s better to field juniors than send a bunch of non-performing oldies and face another round of humiliation.?

Assam can stay afloat in the elite group if they defeat Hyderabad with a bonus point and hosts Baroda deny UP any point from their match. UP have four points from the Kanpur win.

?Last time (after the defeat against Uttar Pradesh in Kanpur), we mulled a reshuffle, but gave the players another chance. This time, we have decided to drop the entire set of non-performing senior players,? Baruah said after the debacle against Maharashtra.

However, wholesale axing in the team was avoided and some of the seniors were retained to make a ?blend of experience and youth?.

Assam suffered an innings and 46-run defeat against Maharashtra in Aurangabad last week. Barring Sarma, Sukhwinder Singh, R. Satish and Arlen Konwar, all the seniors failed miserably. In the first innings, Sarma scored 77, while 42 and 34 came from the bats of Singh and Konwar to help Assam post 201.

Maharashtra took a first innings lead of 199 runs, riding 122 runs from D. Mohan to score 400 runs. Konwar claimed four for 110 off 40 overs, while Javed Zaman took three for 78 off 24.1 overs. Assam folded up at 153 with Satish? 39 being the top score in the second innings.

Gautam Dutta, Subhadeep Ghosh and R.K. Mritunjoy Gohain were dropped after the Kanpur debacle to make room for Gokul Sarma and Subhrajit Saikia. While Sarma has delivered to a large extent, Saikia failed against Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra.

?If the juniors (under-19 and under-17) can tame stronger rivals with ease in the Cooch Behar Trophy and Vijay Merchant Trophy, why can?t the seniors, who were given better facilities, deliver?? the ACA secretary asked.

Coach Dinesh Nanavati admitted that barring the juniors, especially Parvez Aziz and Sarma and the outstation players, the seniors have been failed in one match after another. ?Yet, they are not trying to improve themselves. We still don?t know what is going wrong with the team. But it is time to lay a good wicket in Assam to train the players. The seniors have been able to get some run or ball only at the docile Nehru Stadium wicket in Guwahati.?

Against Hyderabad, the coach was optimistic because former Test spinner Venkatapathy Raju will not play following his retirement from first-class cricket on December 15.

THE TEAM: Syed Zakaria Zuffri (captain), Gokul Sarma, Arlen Konwar, Sukhwinder Singh, R. Satish, V. Saravanan, Raj Kapoor Yadav, Javed Zaman, Mrigen Talukdar, Mark Ingti, Baburam Magor, Sazzad Hussain, Parag Das and Jason Lamare