In Yorkshire they still remember Vinod Kambli, the next big Indian batsman of the 90s who now epitomizes the frightful consequences of young cricketers failing to handle fame and fortune. The time Sachin Tendulkar earned the right to be the first overseas cricketer to call Headingley his home county and hit global headlines, his friend Kambli, yet to make his Test debut, was playing for a small club around there, making waves and friends for life.
Many years later, those who played with him and against the mercurial stroke maker here back in the day, have read media reports about his alcohol addiction, watched his struggles to speak in interviews, keep asking that one question: “What happened to Kambli?”
Nasa Hussain is the head groundsman at Park Avenue ground in Bradford, an area dominated by those with roots in Pakistan and India. He, like Kambli, is in his 50s now. In the early 90s, they were young cricketers with dreams.
Kambli was 19 but he had the swagger of a Test veteran. “As a South Asian, Sachin joining Yorkshire was big news. I’ll tell you what was better, he brought along with him his friend Vinod Kambli, who played in our league. I’ve never-ever met a person who hits the ball as hard as he used to,” he says.
Nasa still remembers the first ball he bowled to him. “He just runs down the track and hits the first ball for six, and you think, ‘well okay’. Young man from India, never seen before, never heard of before, and he just comes and smashes it. Subsequently, he went on to score two double-hundreds against England. That was some talent,” he says before seamlessly switching to a rueful tone. “In today’s day and age, that guy would have been a multi-millionaire.”
Kambli is part of Yorkshire’s folklore, he is that enigmatic character, whose life story provokes both disbelief and regret. As with all colourful characters, it is the anecdotes that act as bricks in the building of a myth. Solly Adam, the man responsible for hosting and bringing close to 400 sub-continent players to England, has many of them.
He isn’t an agent but a businessman with passion for cricket and kindness. He was also the captain of the team that Kambli played for. At one point, Solly was playing host to about 10 to 15 Indian cricketers at his home. Many were staying there; others had made a habit of dropping by for meals. With the money from the club not much, most had day jobs – some working at Solly’s fuel station, factory or shopping centre. Over to Solly.
Story continues below this ad
“One day we were sitting, 10 cricketers. All of them had part-time jobs except for Vinod and Sachin. So a cricketer from Mumbai asked Vinod – ‘Since you only earn 25 pound a match, why don’t you work at one of Solly’s places? Kambli didn’t think for a minute, pat came his reply: ‘Me and Sachin will make money playing Test cricket, I don’t want to divert my attention doing part-time jobs.’ That was exceptional, what confidence. He was very young, far from being a Test batsman but he had the confidence,” recalls Solly.
Solly says he has dedicated a chapter on Kambli in his book Beyond Boundaries. It’s a treasure trove of cricketing yarns that makes Kambli’s batting flamboyance and his rocky life beyond the field jump out of the pages.
It was on the advice of his friend, the great Sunil Gavaskar, that Solly had signed Kambli for Spen Victoria cricket club. When the Mumbai boy landed at the club, he didn’t make a great first impression. Kambli was a frail teenager, his frame didn’t give any hint of a hard-hitter hidden inside him. “His arms are like chicken legs,” said one member.
Soon the impression would change. In a game, he took the Yorkshire and England player Paul Grayson to the cleaners, forcing the all-rounder to take himself out of attack. Grayson would later confide to Solly that he had a Yorkshire game coming and with a youngster hitting his best balls outside the ground in a club game, he didn’t want to shatter his confidence.
Story continues below this ad
Kambli’s brilliant inaugural season got him a bonus of 700 pounds, a King’s ransom in the 90s. Solly would travel to Mumbai and hand over the money to Kambli’s father, who said he hadn’t even seen that kind of money, Solly writes in his book. “However, Vinod, when he returned to India, took all the money from his father and spent it with his friends … Vinod never cared about money, nor did he have any respect for commodities”.
In his book, Solly writes that his tears well-up when he thinks about “the tragic story of the bright child.” It pains him since Kambli would often refer to Solly in the English media as his “father figure”. The final paragraph of the Kambli chapter is a helping hand to an old friend. “I have attempted several times to contact Vinod, but unfortunately, I have not received any response from him. If by chance Vinod gets to see this at least, I want him to know we have a lot of love for him … Vinod, we all miss you, my dear!”
