vinod kamblis sachin friendship on sach ka saamna part2

Vinod kamblis talent was there to see when he entered International cricket in 1992.
Although 3 years later than sachin tendulkar, he seemed to be more than eager to make up for it by scoring 2 double centuries in the first seven matches he played. The cricketing world was suddenly waking up to a boy who was promising all that it was expecting of sachin the last few years. People started comparing the two boys.
They stared featuring as a pair on newspaper covers, print ads and tv commercials.
A heady concoction to say the least, that too for boys in their early 20's.

Suddenly the honeymoon seemed to be over for kambli though. After a few scratchy performances he found himself sidelined. a drop from the heights of sky to the depth of realities maybe didnt go down too well with him. Stories about his late night drunken escapades started appearing in the newspapers. His antics in the dressing room also started making headlines. Having a colorful personality did its part of keeping him in the news for mostly the wrong reasons.

But its not that only his behavior was questionable; there were some apparently grey areas in the selection too. It wasnt clear why sachin made an early debut while vinod kambli was made to wait nearly three years before getting a chance. Even if this aberration is ignored, the bcci doesnt present a strong case for itself if we see the random way in which the team was selected in the nineties. Being a big fan of sachin - kambli, I combo wished to see them bat together. After his omission from the team, my agenda used to be reading the newspaper to track whether the next team selection featured vinod kambli or not. To my utter chagrin it always turned out to be surprising.

Even with some decent shows under his belt in the domestic seasons, vinod kambli was systematically ignored for few times. I dont blame the BCCI for discriminating but there could always be people who dont necessarily see the bigger picture. Going by the selection goofups my faith in the cricket administration waned to such an extent that i started to feel skeptical about the people in control.

The final coffin in the head was sourav ganguly. The way in which he was introduced in the team was controversial. Till this day i believe that ganguly reaped the benefits of the nepotism shown towards him in his early days. I dont mean to say he didnt have talent; but just that he got the chance to showcase it when it mattered and ahead of his turn. There was a point of time when i used to hate watching ganguly bat since i couldnt forget about the injustice done to another talent from Mumbai. (My disdain for ganguly turned to respect the way he handled the team post the matchfixing scandal and the Lords t-shirt twirling incident. He became "Amar Dada" after that.)

With vinod kambli doing nothing to better his chances of a selection by carrying on with his happy go luck ways, it was just a matter of time before his possibilities of a comeback exhausted. Though its worth mentioning that the moment sachin was made captain he found himself in the team. I even heard that sachin fought with the selectors to get him in the team. With all this support from his captain why did he not get serious about playing for the country.
It didnt take long for him to fizzle out thought.His checkered test career ended before he was 24. Although he made one day appearances till as recently as 2000, his performances were never good enough to cement his place in the ODI side.

If sachin tendulkar is arguably the greatest gift to indian cricket i would call vinod kambli the greatest loss to indian cricket. There have been instances of cricketers that have had things going for them initially and later lost their way inexplicably. Vinod kambli can easily vie for a spot in this infamous club.