Old-school Chatterjee flourishes in T20 era

Like most Bengalis, he loves his football. He is an elegant left-handed batsman who can please the eyes with his off side strokeplay. He is also soon becoming the fulcrum around which his team's batting revolves. Perhaps an image of Sourav Ganguly easing the ball through cover and looking back at the dressing room to raise his bat comes to mind. Remind Sudip Chatterjee about this and you elicit an innocent response, but there is thrill in his voice when he says he can now talk batting with the man he grew up watching in Barasat, a small town on the outskirts of Kolkata.

Why Chatterjee now, you may ask? The Ranji Trophy scorecards this season point to his insatiable hunger for batting long. With 608 runs in six matches, he is currently the fifth-highest run-scorer this season. His 147 against Maharashtra in the seventh round that concluded on Wednesday was his fourth hundred of the season, and his fifth in first-class matches. It helped Bengal walk away with the first-innings lead in Pune and keep their quarter-final hopes alive.

Chatterjee, 24, is aware of the inevitable comparison that comes by scoring heaps of runs. But he's quick to point out flamboyance is not his thing. "It feels great to be talked in the same breath as Dada, but he scored at a faster rate," Chatterjee tells ESPNcricinfo. "My style is to bat, and bat long. That is what I've been taught all along. That has brought me runs so far, so I don't want to now change my approach for anything."

Chatterjee has an air of assuredness at the crease. What strikes you instantly about his batting is that he has plenty of time and that he generally prefers to hit along the ground, grind the bowlers down and then dig in to make it count. It was not always the case, he admits. "When I started, I was initially concentrating on only occupying the crease, but soon I realised you also have to expand," he explains. "In age-group cricket, you are recognised for runs and not how long you bat, so I made some minor adjustments to my game."

It looked like those changes bore fruit as he made 192 in last year's Ranji opener against Baroda. But 12 subsequent innings yielded 392 runs at an average of 33, leading to a hint of disappointment. "Whether I make runs or no, I don't neglect even the minor issues that are pointed out to me," he says. One of the areas he was told to work on was with incoming deliveries. And there was good reason. He had been out either bowled or leg before wicket 10 out of the 13 times he batted last season.

Chats with VVS Laxman, he says, have been reassuring. Laxman, the batting consultant for Cricket Association of Bengal in their ambitious 'Vision 2020' project, has spent a fortnight thrice over the last year with the Bengal team, working with batsmen across all age-groups in batches. "He explained to me the adjustments he had to make from opening to batting in the middle order…What are the routines he followed, how he adjusted to different wickets. It boosted me," Chatterjee says. "His advice was simple: when you make a hundred, make it count."

Chatterjee credits exposure to his improvement. As part of their pre-season camp, the Bengal side played an assortment of long-form and day games in Sri Lanka across three weeks. Although Chatterjee was laid low by an injury after just one game, he says the exposure to foreign conditions came as a breath of fresh air.

What sets him apart from many of the other talented batsmen, one might think. Raju Mukherji, a former Bengal batsman and one who understands Bengal cricket better than most others, offers proper perspective. "Full marks to his dedication," he says. "What I like about him is the attitude. It has never occurred to him that he doesn't have an IPL contract. His batting style is a throwback to the 1970s and '80s. His batting brings plenty of calm to the dressing room, and he is equally adept at both pace and spin; qualities which are rare these days especially when there is so much focus on bashing the ball and adjusting to the shorter formats." There is plenty of merit there, given he has served as a Bengal selector for most parts of Chatterjee's blossoming career.

Sairaj Bahutule, who is the current Bengal coach, throws in another interesting observation. "He picks the length early these days, at least that is evident during the time I have been associated with the team," he says. "We have specific roles for each of the batsmen. With Sudip, the mantra is simple. Give him ample time to play himself in and then he tends to score freely. Technically, he has all bases covered, and as a coach, we have worked on getting him to bat long."

In his short journey of 22 first-class matches, Chatterjee has proven words like old-world virtues, text-book batting and orthodoxy are the best adjectives to describe his batting. While the two-hour drive from Barasat to Eden Gardens has gotten a lot more comfortable now, chances are a google search on 'Sudip Chatterjee' would not take you to the profile page of the famous Kolkata football player, also named Sudip Chatterjee, if he continues to do what he has been so far.