'Vinod Kambli hit Kumble into the stone wall...': Dravid's 'talent' lesson aptly sums up 'why Tendulkar is where he is'
Rahul Dravid took Vinod Kambli's name to explain what can happen if a fantastic batter doesn't have the other aspects of the talent package.
What do you perceive as talent in cricket? A batter's ability to time the ball? a bowler's ability to generate pace or extract turn? For legendary Indian cricketer Rahul Dravid, there are other facets that one needs to look at before labelling someone as "talented" simply on the basis of what he does with the bat or the ball. An old video of India's T20 World Cup-winning head coach surfaced on social media after former India cricketers and childhood friends Vinod Kambli and Sachin Tendulkar reunited at coach Ramakant Achrekar's memorial event in Mumbai. The sorry state of Kambli once again got people talking about a lost talent and how an outstanding batter lost his way in life and in cricket.
In the old video, Dravid discussed the misconception that talent in cricket is judged solely by the player's skills with bat and ball. The only Indian cricketer, apart from Sachin Tendulkar, to score more than 10,000 runs in Tests and ODIs, Dravid said equal importance must be given to traits such as discipline, courage, and determination to find the right package.
"I think we judge talent wrong. How do we judge talent? And I've made the same mistake. We judge talent by people's ability to strike a cricket ball. The sweetness or the timing of a cricket ball. That's the only thing we see as talent. Things like determination, courage, discipline, and temperament are also talents. When we are judging talent, I think we've got to look at the whole package," he had said.
Why Vinod Kambli didn't reach Sachin Tendulkar's heights, Dravid explains
Dravid gave the example of Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag to make his point clear. "It's a hard thing to explain but some people just have the gift of timing and ball-striking. Sourav Ganguly just had that ability to time a cover drive. He just had it. You could see. Schin has it. A Virus has it. 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 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.
Dravid took Vinod Kambli's name to explain what can happen if a fantastic batter doesn't have the other aspects of the talent package.
"I hate to use but Viniod's probably been one of the nicest guys that I've met. Vinod had an incredible ball-striking ability. I remember a game in Rajkot, Vinod got 150 against (Javagal) Srinath and Anil (Kumble). It was incredible. First ball Anil came onto 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," he said.
Recommended Topics 
