After a video of Vinod Kambli‘s recent public appearance came to the fore, an old clip of Rahul Dravid sharing his views on the definition of ‘talent’, while mentioning Vinod Kambli’s name, has resurfaced on social media. Kambli, a childhood friend of the legendary Sachin Tendulkar, was one of the most-talked about cricketers when he arrived at the scene, but he failed to maintain the stature. Despite playing 104 ODIs and 17 Tests for India after making his debut in 1991, Kambli’s international career could not last even a decade.

In the viral resurfaced clip, Dravid, who played 509 matches for India besides also coaching the senior team later, gave the example of how Vinod Kambli had an incredible ‘ball-striking ability’ but probably “didn’t have the talent in the other areas to understand what it took to be an international cricketer.”

“I think we judge talent wrong. What do we see as 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 judging talent, I think we’ve got to look at the whole package,” he said in the video.

“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. Sachin has it. And Viru. 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 actually 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.

Feel like posting this today.

Trust Rahul Dravid to say this so beautifully.

Video courtesy – cricinfo. pic.twitter.com/bHjKCTHjSs

— Bishontherockz (@BishOnTheRockx) December 4, 2024

“I hate to use… but Vinod’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,” Dravid further said.

India’s Yashasvi Jaiswal raises his bat after scoring fifty on Day 1 of the 5th Test vs England.© BCCI