Vinod Kambli

Vinod Ganpat Kambli ( pronunciation  (born 18 January 1972) is a former Indian cricketer, who played for India as a middle order batsman, as well as for Mumbai and Boland, South Africa. He is a childhood friend of the Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar. Currently he appears as a cricket expert and commentator on various television channels. He has also appeared on various reality shows and done few serials and Bollywood films as an actor. Now he is doing a supporting role in the Kannada film Bettanagere.

Early life

Kambli hails from Indira Nagar, Kanjurmarg, a suburb of Mumbai.The small patch of land that served as his first cricket pitch was surrounded on all sides by high-rise buildings.The scoring system was dictated by the lack of space, and the higher a batsman hit the ball into the buildings the more runs he scored. It explains why Kambli was one of the best over-the-top hitters of spin bowling.

School cricket and later

He shared an unbroken partnership of 664 runs in a school match against St. Xavier's School, Fort, with Sachin Tendulkar.^[7] Kambli contributed 349 runs before their coach Acharekar forced the pair to declare; he then took 6 wickets for 37 in St. Xavier's first innings.^[8] Kambli, who started his Ranji trophy career with a six off the first ball he faced,^[9] soon followed Sachin in to the Indian team. Kambli made two double-centuries and two centuries in seven tests. Kambli also holds the record of "quickest 1000 test runs" by an Indian. He took just 14 test innings to reach this feat.^[10] .