Kambli - Rising star who ran himself out - Derek Pringle

[gator]

wat prevented other batters from notching up consecutive double hundreds and slam bang start to their careers at 19-20 yrs old..... those bowlers bowled only to him??? u r saying tht bowlers like Nash and Benjamin are far higher than Defreitas or Malcolm or Lewis??? for ur info, Malcolm was a 90 mph bowler, one frightening mofo.... Walsh is an alltime legend and a kid struggling against him for the first time is how u would base ur judgement??? i wanna see how many 19 yr olds came out blazing like tht??

[The Outsider]

Kambli wasn't half as bad as some of you here are making him out to be. He had a failing against the short ball but so do many batsmen from the subcontinent when they start off their careers. Among the successful ones Azhar, Miandad, Malik, Ganguly, and Amarnath come to mind. It is something which most batsmen from the subcontinent learn to master at the international level unfortunately. His demonstrated temperament to play the big innings should have been considered as well as his absolute perfect play against spin. He was battered by Walsh but Walsh was a very good bowler. That should not have been the judgement call on his career.

[kumble_rocks]

wat prevented other batters from notching up consecutive double hundreds and slam bang start to their careers at 19-20 yrs old..... those bowlers bowled only to him??? u r saying tht bowlers like Nash and Benjamin are far higher than Defreitas or Malcolm or Lewis??? for ur info, Malcolm was a 90 mph bowler, one frightening mofo.... Walsh is an alltime legend and a kid struggling against him for the first time is how u would base ur judgement??? i wanna see how many 19 yr olds came out blazing like tht??

Malcolm was more useless than Sami during that series in my opinion. I was in Wankhede stadium for the third test where another FTB Hick scored 178 and Malcolm was not even selected for that test match. In fact he had a grand total of 3 wkts during that series. And yes, it was commendable to score two double hundreds , but the likes Defreitas or Lewis are hardly world class . To compare his talent to Lara is doing great injustice to Lara in my opinion. And my judgement is not just based how he played Walsh alone. He struggled against short pitch stuff even in ODI . And why are you discounting the fact that he played grand total of 1 test outside the subcontinent. While I can agree that Kambli was a good player, no way was he a talent comparable to the likes of Lara , Imo. Did he get shortchanged in Tests , probably. But keep in mind , his average in the last 7 tests he played was around 17 runs .

[gator]

But keep in mind , his average in the last 7 tests he played was around 17 runs .

and u r saying tht, it is too long of a rope for a talented youngster who averaged 115 in his first 7-8 tests at a tender age of 19.... wow....

And why are you discounting the fact that he played grand total of 1 test outside the subcontinent. While I can agree that Kambli was a good player, no way was he a talent comparable to the likes of Lara , Imo.

how is tht his fault?? and obviously our opinions are different cos we are trying to measure talent and not achievements.....

[Tapioca]

But keep in mind , his average in the last 7 tests he played was around 17 runs .

The last three Tests were against New Zealand which was heavily interrupted by rain. Kambli batted in two innings in the three Tests and scored 28 and 27. You can't retain or drop a player based just on those stats. When he was axed, it was solely on evidence of the series against West Indies the previous year. Contrary to what Kumble_rocks says in his last post, there was no "sorting out" by Nash/Cairns either, as had happened against Walsh and co. If I remember correctly, his innings of 30 odd not out against West Indies in the World cup (which came when India was in a slightly sticky position) included a hook over midwicket for six off Curtly Ambrose. While England's performance in 1992-93 makes us laugh now, it was not so at the time. India had three ruinous series abroad (Aus in 1991/2 and Zim & SA just before the Eng series). The bowling was hardly anything to talk of while the batting had flopped badly even against Zimbabwe. England bowling was far strong on paper (even Sailsbury had done well against Pakistan) The captain had neck in the noose, and had Shastri not been injured and averaged a little more than 12 in SAF, the Azhar era may have ended after SA tour. It would have been no surprise if England had won the series. When we put down Kambli's batting in that serise, we are just being wise after the event.

[CC1981]

Ummm...Kambli's comparison with Lara is very valid. Yes, Kambli had a very glaring flaw against short pitched ball outside the offstump ( NOT on his body- he could still pull and hook fairly well) but Lara had one glaring flaw when he first came in (ie, same period as Kambli-early 90s): he was very mediocre against SPIN. Lara read spin off the pitch, not off the hands those days and he was clueless more often than not against Kumble, Qadir, Raju, etc. I remember watching him bat in the early 90s and he batted like a retard against Murali in a test match too. Yes, he clobbered Warne all around the park for his 277 and that was a mighty fine innings but Warney had a slow start to his career, much like most spinners. Kambli had many problems lining his path IMO: 1. He was undisciplined and thus didn't grasp his chances fully 2. His weakness was against short pitched fast bowling outside offstump, not spin-bowling like Viv or Lara. Cricket is a fundamentally unbalanced sport when it comes to picking between spinners and pacers- pacers have always had the advantage since cricket originates from a nation who's climate is pace-friendly. The West Indies is the only exception to this but they are blessed with really hard pitches in their islands (though they make pancake pitches these days), possibly due to the volcanic nature of their islands. Thus while a glaring weakness against spin is not hard to hide in cricket (unless you are rising through the subcontinental ranks or play the subcontinent too much), a glaring weakness against a particular pace delivery is much more brutally exploited. Thus he was under added pressure to fix his flaw more urgently than Lara was at his. 3. The straw that broke the camel's back (or rather, the straws), came in the names of Ganguly and Dravid. Kambli was a middle order bat and India in the mid 90s had two FIXED middle order batsmen- Tendulkar and Azharuddin. Those two were undroppable and rightly so IMO as they were the #1 and #2 batsmen in the test team through the 90s. That leaves two spot. Dravid was always seen as a huge prospect because of his extremely technically correct batting and his mindset and Dravid proved a quick study in tests- he averaged almost 40 in the 1st year of test cricket and 60+ in the second, thus sealing his spot. Gangoo, who was touted to fail batted like a comet blazing a trail- his first four innings read 131, 136, 48 & 66. A Kambli-esque start but what put Saurav ahead of Kambli at that time was the fact that he made those runs against England in England, where Indian batsmen have a tradition of folding up and against Australia. Gangoo continued his meteoric rise, averaging 50+ in his first two seasons. Kambli was dropped in 1995 and Dravid & Ganguly debuted in 96. And by 97, Dravid and Ganguly had *firmly* established themselves in the linenup with raw hard results. This meant that Kambli's chances became extremely slim and barring a few miracle-seasons in domestic cricket and loss of form of the two newcommers, he'd be at best an injury-fill in. So what was a wasted opportunity to begin with never got a second comming due to the meteoric rise of Ganguly and Dravid in the test team.

[Brainfade]

Good analysis CC1981

[Gaurav]

Always liked Kambli. What a waste but that is life I guess.

"don't you think it's time you pulled out that bloody orange."

:hysterical::hysterical: that was funny!