The Gift Not Nurtured

VINOD KAMBLI, hair and beard entirely white, words coming out with difficulty, walking slowly like an old man. Right there, a study in contrast, Sachin Tendulkar—looking just as he had 15 years ago when he was still in his prime. This was at the inau­guration of a memorial of their coach Ramakant Achrekar in Mumbai. As you saw the two, you rewound back to when Kambli first entered the national cricket scene and the livewire energy he brought into the cricketing world, and at the same time Tendulkar’s mellow personality, once again a contrast in a different way.

Great gifts are accompanied by flaws. The line of sportsmen who succumb to that other side is a long one. Mike Tyson in boxing, Tiger Woods in golf, and in India, Vinod Kambli in cricket. He began his career as a fairy tale, someone who rose out of the chawls, and for just a brief moment, even overshadowed Tendulkar, and then slowly but surely began to implode. In 1991, he was first inducted into the ODI squad. Two years later, he was in the Test team. By 1996, he had been dropped for disciplinary issues. There were issues with drinking, coming back after late-night parties when on tour, temper tantrums. He got back into the team but never really overcame the slide. By 2000, he was well and truly out of the national team. Since then, he has continued to make head­lines for the wrong reasons. Two years ago, there was a drunk driving case and before that, of an assault on his wife. Meanwhile, his financial condition deteriorated and he claimed to be living off his BCCI pension of ₹30,000 per month.

In the 1990s, national cricketers weren’t as well paid as now, but even then, they were demigods and it was still extremely lucrative. It needed extraordinary mismanagement to blow it all away, which is also something that happens to sport personalities because this is not some­thing that they are ever equipped for. At the heart of all such ruin is however the inability to handle success, or to recognise it as fleeting unless relent­lessly reinforced. The approach that some greats bring to the field is reflect­ed off-field too. People like Tendulkar or Sunil Gavaskar were laser-focused on the game, and everything else in their lives was just to achieve that end. This kept them stable emotionally.

Sudden superstardom can lead to incredible temptations that men and women raised in a regular life can get easily swallowed by. Some avoid it, some manage to balance it out. Some fall and manage to get their moorings again losing half their playing life. Some dive headlong into it and never recover. Tendulkar retired 13 years after Kambli because he could switch off from those distractions. There are cricketers even today who fall into the trap, considering it the reward for having given their life blood to reach this point. But the futility of that attitude should be evident to anyone who sees the image of Kambli and Tendulkar on a common stage.

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