(From left) Roy, Purkayastha and Chetry. Picture by Eastern Projections

Guwahati, Feb. 24: Four promising youngsters today made the cut to represent Assam in the Ranji Trophy East Zone limited-over cricket tournament, commencing here on Tuesday.

The new faces in the squad, named this afternoon for the first match against Orissa, include under-19 players Swarupam Purkayastha, Shiv Shankar Roy and Bikram Chetry and under-22 player Jyoti Medhi.

The teams for the remaining matches against Bengal, Jharkhand and Tripura will be named separately later on.

Former Test player Sadagopan Ramesh has been named captain of the squad, which will open campaign against Orissa at Nehru Stadium here on Tuesday. Tamil Nadu recruit S. Sharath was the state team captain in the Ranji Trophy Plate Group tournament earlier this season.

The four youngsters gave some “consistent performance” in the various under-19 and under-22 BCCI tournaments as well as in the selection trials since February 1 to make it to the squad.

Other strong contenders Tazinder Singh, Baburam Magor, Kunal Saikia and Bichitra Baruah were all named as standbys. Seasoned fast bowler R.K. Yadav too has been named as a standby.

While Roy is a top order batsman, Purkayastha is an allrounder, Medhi a fast bowler and Chetry a spinner.

Although Guwahati batsman Rajib Kalita was also a strong contender to make it to the squad with his consistency since the last season, he could not impress upon the selectors this time too. ACA secretary Bikash Baruah in his own discretionary power, following their outstanding performance in a recent invitation tournament, invited Kalita and Magor to the trials.

Apart from the quartet, spinner Pankaj Tamuli too staged a comeback in the senior team after a gap of four seasons since he had played his only Ranji Trophy match in the 2002-03 season.

The Tinsukia off spinner caught the attention of the selectors with some outstanding cricket in the current season on the basis of which he was invited to the trials.

The squad: S. Ramesh (capt), Rajdeep Das (wk), S. Suresh, Nishanta Bordoloi, Palash Jyoti Das, Swarupam Purkayastha, Shiv Shankar Roy, Souvik Das, S. Sharath, Arlen Konwar, Bikram Chetry, Dhiraj Goswami, Krishna Das, Jyoti Medhi and Pankaj Tamuli. Coach — Sanath Kumar K., Physio R.B. Kannan and Manager Umananda Bora.