Vinod Kambli- Batting For Life

Post cricket, Vinod Kambli ignored his health. Two heart attacks later, he is a changed man

- Pooja Biraia Jaiswal

In February 1988, two boys from Mumbai's Shardashram Vidyamandir shared a 664-run partnership in the semifinals of an inter-school cricket tournament. Vinod Kambli, 16, and Sachin Tendulkar, 14, were unrelenting, till their stern coach, Ramakant Achrekar, forced them to declare. Kambli was on 349 and Tendulkar on 326. It would be a while before it became known that the two had created a world record.

At that point, it seemed almost impossible to talk of one without mentioning the other. More than 30 years later, their partnership is still rock solid, says Kambli, seated on a leather-bound brownish red sofa, in his plush apartment in Bandra, Mumbai. “We still remain thick and strong, albeit, off the field now,” he says with a warm, wide grin. The years have made the former cricketer more sober, introspective and withdrawn of late.

Amid the cricket frenzy of the 1990s, Kambli was famous for his aggressive batting and his flamboyant lifestyle. As those who have known him recount, he would ride into Mumbai's iconic Taj hotel on his Kinetic Honda and ask the valet to park it between his peers' Mercs and BMWs. Kambli's energy on the field, too, was strikingly palpable. But that was then. When he was in the best of his health, when calories burnt faster than they were consumed and workout was routine. Cut JA to the present, and Kambli is sailing through life cautiously.