There were many such players in Indian cricket who left a tremendous mark in the beginning of their career but then due to various reasons, they soon had to leave the field. Such players, whose talent surprised and impressed everyone but due to their habits, they could not do justice to that talent. Perhaps the first name in this list will always be that of Vinod Kambli. The career of this former batsman of the Indian team will always be remembered for what would have happened if he had been a little more careful. Nevertheless, as long as Kambli remained active in cricket, he always entertained and today, on his 53rd birthday, it is important to remember his career.

Vinod Kambli, born on 18 January 1972 in Mumbai (then Bombay), also learned the tricks of cricket by becoming a disciple of famous coach Ramakant Achrekar in the grounds of Mumbai along with Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar. During his school cricket days, Kambli had made his mark with Sachin by making an unbeaten world record partnership of 664 runs in the Harris Shield tournament. Sachin got a place in Team India just one year after this memorable partnership, but Kambli had to wait for some time.

Six on the first ball, a flurry of century-double century

However, even before joining international cricket, Kambli had entered first class cricket with a bang. Coming out to bat for the first time in his Ranji Trophy debut match in 1989, left-handed batsman Kambli made a great start by hitting a brilliant six on the very first ball of his career. Such surprising style of this batsman surprised everyone but soon everyone got used to it. On the basis of his explosive and long innings in domestic cricket, Kambli did not take much time to join Team India.

Kambli made his debut in international cricket in ODI cricket in October 1991 and scored his first century within about a year and a quarter. Incidentally, Kambli's first ODI century came on his 21st birthday in 1993. Not only this, he had scored a century in ODI cricket even before Sachin. Sachin scored his first ODI century in 1994, 5 years after starting his career. After this excellent century, Kambli got a chance to debut in Test cricket in the same month (January 1993). The start was not good but in his third Test itself he scored a double century against England and then scored a double century in the next Test also. He did not stop here and scored 2 centuries against Sri Lanka in the next 2 consecutive tests.

That's why Kambli's batting was very special

There were some special things in Kambli's batting, which made him quite different from other batsmen. He had expertise in using his moves against the spinners. The 22 runs scored by Shane Warne in a single over were witness to this. Whereas making sharp cuts towards the street was child's play for them. Apart from all this, he was known for one strange thing and that was putting multiple grips on the handle of the bat. Generally any batsman applies maximum 2 or 3 grips on the handle of the bat but Kambli many times used to come out to bat with 9-9 grips.

How was Kambli's career?

The talent of this left-handed batsman was not hidden from anyone, but due to various reasons he was never able to advance his career. Often, due to indiscipline, he not only had to lose his place in the team, but it also started affecting his fitness and form. At such times, batsmen like Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman made their place. That's why Kambli's Test career ended at the age of just 24, whereas even after returning to the ODI team 9 times, he could not change himself and his international career ended in 2000. Kambli scored 1084 runs at an average of 54 in his 17 Test career and 2477 runs at an average of 32 in 104 ODIs.