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Joke of the day: Vinod Kambli retires from international cricket.

by Gaurav Sethi

I suppose Kambli will have a laugh at the headline too. Kambli, the eternal showman won’t mind it one bit, here’s some free mileage, thanks.

Why retire from international cricket if you’re not playing international cricket for close to a decade – one last sports’ headline will do nicely, just like the gold chains. More so when you’re back on the public radar with some seedy reality TV show.

Ironically, nothing about Kambli was for real: not his first Ranji ball for six or the world record 664 run partnership with Tendu, that more than anything defined him for years to come. He would always be Tendu’s yaar.

It didn’t matter who was the better batsman. Sachin was moderate, at least on the face of it, cherubic looks, whereas Vinod was flash, in the face, darker.

In ‘fair and lovely’ India that is such a big deal.

Kambli’s career is a vague memory: A test career done and dusted in two years. The numbers make it even vaguer: 2 years, 21 test innings, four hundreds, back to back doubles (against Zim, but so what) a test average of 54.

If he had half of Yuvraj’s looks, charisma, who knows what would have been?

While I always hoped for a Kambli comeback, I secretly knew that the Indian team of the 1990s was too small for two superstars, and one Sachin Tendulkar was all it could handle.

And there was this small matter, he was a wicketkeeper too – a MSD voodoo before its time?

Who knows, even Uthappa was once a wicketkeeper. The similarities are eerie.

Right now though, it’s Kambli who’s taking a bow.


This blogger also writes at Naked Cricket

1 comment:

SM said...

Hahaha .. it cant get any funnier than this I swear. May be he told his latest wife that he has still in him to get back to the international fold .. but I would rather suggest him to do some comedy so that he gets better at it and forget cricket