Legendary India cricketer Sachin Tendulkar reunited with his childhood friend Vinod Kambli at the unveiling ceremony of memorial for legendary cricket coach Ramakant Achrekar in Mumbai on Tuesday, December 3. Notably, Tendulkar and Kambli were pupils of Achrekar who honed their cricketing skills under his tutelage.
The duo made headlines with their immaculate batting prowess from their teenage years and were involved in a mammoth 664-run partnership in school cricket. Kambli and Tendulkar emerged as the two of the greatest students of Achrekar as they realised their dream of playing for India. Recently, the childhood friends were seen reuniting at an event organised for unveiling the memorial for their childhood coach.
In a viral video, Tendulkar can be seen walking over to Kambli to greet him as the duo share a warm embrace and have a brief chat. Apart from them, the event was also graced by former cricketers and Achrekar’s pupils, Paras Mambhrey, Pravin Amre, Balwinder Singh Sandhu, Sanjay Bangar and Samir Dighe.
Watch the video here:
Kambli has been going through a tumultuous period in his life as recently a video of him got viral where he was unable to walk on his own which left his fans concerned about his health. Kambli spoke about his worrying financial condition in 2022 and revealed that he’s solely dependent on the pension by the BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) which takes care of his family.
Tendulkar and Kambli’s contrasting careers in international cricket
While both Tendulkar and Kambli realised their dream of playing for the country, Tendulkar surpassed his good friend on the cricket pitch as he finished his career as the most prolific batter in the history of the game. However, Kambli, who was touted to be even more talented than Tendulkar, got his career off to a terrific start , notching a double century in just his second game against England.
He later scored another double hundred in his third game against Zimbabwe and became the first Indian batter to score back to back 200 in Tests and third overall. He further scored two hundreds more hundreds in his first seven Tests against Sri Lanka. However, the southpaw failed to score a half century in his last ten innings, which included three ducks. He could only play 17 Tests in his career and scored 1084 runs at an average of 54.20 with four hundreds and three fifties.
In ODIs, the Mumbai-born cricketer played 104 games scoring 2477 runs from 97 innings at an average of 32.59 and a strike rate of 71.94 with two hundreds and 14 fifties. He played his last international game against Sri Lanka in October 2000 in Sharjah and was never seen in India colours. He finally announced his retirement from international cricket in 2009.
