Vinod Kambli’s recent appearance in public brought back into public view an old video of Rahul Dravid discussing talent and calling Vinod Kambli’s name. Kambli happened to be a childhood friend of the iconic Sachin Tendulkar, and became one of India’s most talked-about cricketers on his arrival at the scene. However, Kambli just could not keep up the stature he enjoyed at any point in time. A match played in 104 ODIs and 17 Tests for India since making his debut in 1991 would cut Kambli’s international career even less than a decade.
In this viral resurfaced clip, Dravid, who has played 509 matches for India and later also coached the senior team, gave the brilliant example of how Vinod Kambli had an incredible “ball-striking ability” but probably “didn’t have the talent in the other areas to understand what it took to be an international cricketer.”
“I think we judge talent wrong. What did we see as talent? I’ve made the same mistake. People’s ability to strike a cricket ball is how we judge talent. That’s the only thing we see as talent. We deem things such as determination, courage, character, and temperament as talents. When we judge talent, I think we got to look at the whole package,” he said in the video.
“It’s a tough one-in-a-million kind of thing, but some people just have the feel for timing the ball while they strike it. Sourav just had that touch for cover-driving perfectly in time. No two ways about it. You could see him do it. Sachin has it. And Viru. You wouldn’t say that about someone like Gautam (Gambhir) as much as you would do for some of these other guys. Not that Gautam is less successful. So that’s what we see as talent. We don’t actually look at the other side of talent. We say, a talented player didn’t make it. We always look at this side but maybe he didn’t have the other talents, “Dravid added.
“I hate to use, you know… but Vinod is probably one of nicest guys that I have met. Amazing ball-striking ability, remembers a match in Rajkot. Vinod made 150 off (Javagal) Srinath and Anil (Kumble). It was incredible. First ball Anil came down to bowl, he hit him straight into the stone wall. In Rajkot, there used to be a stone wall. He hit it bang straight onto it. I mean, we were all shocked, wow it was amazing. How do you do that? But maybe he didn’t have the talent in the other areas to understand what it took to be an international cricketer, to deal with the stress and the pressure. I can only guess, but maybe Sachin had that much more. That’s why Sachin is where he is today,” Dravid further said.
