Kapil Dev compares Sachin Tendulkar and Vinod Kambli on their talent

Indian cricket legend Kapil Dev, who led India to their maiden world cup title in 1983, feels that talent alone cannot guarantee success. According to him, there are other things too which help nurture talent and growth in the right direction.

He took the example of Indian batting legend Sachin Tendulkar and his childhood mate Vinod Kambli, who started their cricketing careers together, to elaborate his viewpoint. Dev said, “They both started together and were equally talented. Kambli, maybe, was more talented, but his support system, the environment at home and his friends circle, was totally different than what Sachin had.”

But the legendary all-rounder pointed out, “We all know what happened later. Sachin went on to play for 24 years and Kambli just disappeared as he failed to lived up to the success he achieved early in his career.”

Sachin and Kambli became the cynosure of attraction at a very tender age when they put on a world-record unbroken 664-run partnership in a school match.

Kambli, who started his international Test career three years after Tendulkar, impressed everyone with his knack of scoring big runs. He scored a double century in only his third Test match against England and followed it up with another double ton in the next Test he played against Zimbabwe.

However, the precocious talent soon faded away because of inconsistency and a lack of discipline. He played his last Test match in 1995 and his last ODI in 2000. Despite being immensely talented, Kambli played only 17 Tests and 104 ODIs in national colours.

Whereas,on the other hand, his childhood friend Tendulkar went on and became one of the greatest cricketers of all time. Sachin had an illustrious international career that lasted nearly 24 years and during the span of his career, the master-blaster created umpteen records which will be very hard to break.

His feat of 100 international centuries is simply incredible and it will require a very special effort from someone to even get close that. With 34,357 international runs, the Indian batting maestro has imprinted his name on the cricket record books forever.

There have been a plethora of articles written on the duo and many pundits have tried to analyse what went wrong with Kambli. Kapil’s perspective is quite true in a sense that Sachin himself pointed out the importance of his family in one of his interviews, “It’s my family... the way we interact at home has helped me to be positive. Also, the desire to play for India makes me think in that direction. To get to the top, you have to have a support staff and for me, that is my family.”

Kapil Dev also requested parents not to impose their unfulfilled aspirations on their children, ”Parents should give a chance to children to grow. Their job is to take the children to the ground. What the children do and learn is up to them. Do not push them to do something they don't want to do.”