Coach Nanavati. Picture by UB Photos

Guwahati, Dec. 7: The Assam Cricket Association (ACA) today held senior coach Dinesh Nanavati responsible for the state Ranji Trophy team?s debacle against Uttar Pradesh in the elite Group B tie in Kanpur.

The loss, the ACA top brass felt, has left the team looking down the relegation barrel at the end of the fourth match against Tamil Nadu today. Assam have no points from four ties and will travel to Aurangabad for the crucial tie against Maharashtra from December 13 to 16.

Announcing the team for Maharashtra this afternoon, ACA secretary Bikash Baruah said: ?The loss has compounded our worries. From all accounts we feel the coach did not take the right decision on team composition. We are going to seek an explanation from him for not fielding in-form medium-pacer Zaved Zaman in the match on a green-top wicket in Kanpur.?

Assam lost in Kanpur by eight wickets, despite taking a first-inning lead of 52 runs. Losing to Punjab and UP and conceding first innings leads to Baroda and Tamil Nadu left the team with no points.

Nanavati, who was down with a tummy problem on the first two days of the tie against Tamil Nadu, flew this afternoon to Mumbai for a medical check-up. The former Saurashtra keeper was unavailable for his side of the story.

Baruah?s decision to call for an explanation ahead of two very demanding matches has stumped the cricket fraternity, who feel it might have a demoralising impact on the team. Some of them said the secretary must have taken the decision to keep the growing resentment among the players against the coach in check.

Assam play Hyderabad in the last match of the group from December 31 to January 3.

The team for the Maharashtra tie saw the return of medium-pacer Mark Ingti in place of middle-order batsman Sazzad Hussain. ?We are fielding an extra paceman (Ingti) because the Aurangabad wicket is a green-top,? Baruah said.

THE TEAM: Syed Zakaria Zuffri (capt), Parag Das, Subhrajit Saikia, Vasant Saravanan, R. Satish, Parvez Aziz, Chandan Rawat, Sukhwinder Singh, Gokul Sarma, Raj Kapur Yadav, Arlen Konwar, Mrigen Talukdar, Zaved Zaman and Mark Ingti