Young left-hander Sudeep Chatterjee again gave display of his talent as his patient unbeaten 91 took Bengal to a respectable 255 for three against Baroda in an opening Group A encounter of the Ranji Trophy, here today.
Courtesy Sudeep and another southpaw Shreevats Goswami (61 batting), Bengal didn't face much problems against a Baroda bowling attack that didn't have seamer Irfan Pathan or their primary wicket-taker left-arm spinner Bhargav Bhatt.
The duo added 111 runs for the unbroken fourth wicket partnership after Bengal were reduced to 144 for three when in-form Manoj Tiwary was trapped leg-before with an incutter by veteran seamer Munaf Patel.
Sudeep, who bats with an upright stance played with a lot of maturity as he hit eight boundaries in the 165 balls he faced. Even, the pint-sized Shreevats curbed his natural aggression to score 61 off 128 balls with nine boundaries.
They occasionally attacked Yusuf Pathan but were more intent on taking the ones and twos to keep the scoreboard moving. Sudeep hit some glorious drives on the up and was in a mood punish anything that was fed on his legs.
However what can go against Bengal was extremely slow rate of scoring by their tried and tested opening pair of Arindam Das (54) and Rohan Banerjee (35), who consumed 30 overs in the process adding 78 runs.
Rohan faced 82 balls and hit four boundaries before left-arm spinner Swapnil Singh got him caught by Kedar Devdhar.
Veteran opener Arindam brought about his downfall exactly in the manner he has been doing it all these years. Did the hardwork, got his 23rd first-class 50, played 132 deliveries (26 overs) before edging a delivery from left-arm seamer Gagandeep Singh to Pinal Shah behind the stumps.
Once Manoj was gone, it was Sudeep and Shreevats, who held fort for the remaining 35.5 overs.
Brief Scores: Bengal 255/3 (Sudeep Chatterjee 91 batting, Shreevats Goswami 61 batting, Munaf Patel 1/32, Gagandeep Singh 1/44, Swapnil Singh 1/55) vs Baroda.
