Jimmy Cliff

Cunning Brahmins only play the sport that brings in the moolah .

No. But I wouldn't put it past Gobar to cook up false anecdotes. What I will say with certainty is that the idea that Kambli's own countrymen rooted for his failure is retarded. And that the fact he couldn't make it big had anything to do with an inherent caste bias in Indian cricket. Kambli and Manjrekar both had great starts to their careers and were in the mix in both formats till the mid-90s. What hurt them (and the likes of Sidhu and Amre for that matter) is the emergence of Ganguly and Dravid on the England tour of 1996. These two settled in very quickly and were first choice almost immediately with Azhar and Sachin being the other certainties in the middle order. Manjrekar saw the writing on the wall and retired in 97-98, Sidhu retired a year later whereas Kambli was still around in ODIs until 2000 when a combination of injuries and Yuvraj making it to the senior side got him dropped for good. The likes of Gobar (and that Yesplease guy quoted by @coffee_rules) ignore all the cricketing context and instead try to construct an "atrocity literature" kinda narrative around Kambli while painting Indian cricket (along with Indian society) as a casteist hell-hole.

Perks of being a CIA project?

I can only guess too. With cricket being a relatively expensive sport and the dominant format of the game (FC/Tests) taking 4/5 days perhaps it was only the relatively well-off folks who could think of it as a career option in the first few decades. Which is why it was dominated by players from the metros (with quite a few off them being Brahmins) up until the 90s. With more money coming into the game (and India in general post "liberalization") it gradually became more "decentralized". I'd be open to other non-inane ideas too. However, the likes of Gobar are suggesting something far more institutionalized and sinister at work (his own countrymen rooted for Kambli to fail? WTF?) and must be called out for their BS. You're going down an extremely slippery slope if you import US-style identity politics crap in India especially when it comes to cricket which is something that still unites the country.

It shouldn't be too hard then to list examples of deserving cricketers who couldn't make the national side because of their caste/religion/ethnicity etc. How many such cricketers can you come up with?

Some of our stars have laid down the marker by playing knocks like 8(54) while chasing 120-odd in 4th innings chases in the past. Same folks used to embarrass India in ICC tournaments by scoring unbeaten 30s in 60 overs. Will take a long time for a cultural change.

Looks like after polluting movies, Varun Gobar/Nirodh Kashyap gang have now set their eyes on kirkut. Vinod Kambli was reduced to his assumed (‘lowest’) caste identity

Saam daam dand bedh . Aghadi Gobarmint should be next on the list .

Desi liberandu unkils can look forward to voting for a "हिला ले Pakistan" award winner as the POTUS .

SRH .

Trump is toast. Sleepy Joe is gonna be POTUS even though it will be like watching 4 Seasons of "Weekend at Bernie's".

One of the GOATs. RIP.

Nice read.

Inb4 "Shami would have been hit for 70 runs if he played in that game" comment.