Vinod Kambli Namedropped In Sachin Tendulkar vs Joe Root Comparison: "Fell By The Wayside..."

NDTV

26-07-2025

Joe Root continues to spread his magic in Test cricket. The player became the batter with second most runs in the history of Test cricket on Friday. Root made Day 3 of the fourth Test extremely tough for the Indian bowlers with his classy and solid batting performance. He smashed his 38th Test century on the day. Ahead of Day 3 action, former England batter Michael Atherton was commenting on Root's batting when he also started talking about how a young Sachin Tendulkar fared in his debut outing in England. As Atherton threw light on the importance of making most out of the talent for the players, he also cited example of ex-India middle-order batter Vinod Kambli.
Sachin and Kambli played school cricket together with both the players expected to do wonders for India at the highest level in future. However, the two had contrasting international careers. While Tendulkar turned out to be one of the greatest players of cricket, Kambli failed to live up to the expectations despite a promising start at the highest level.
"It was a run-drenched summer, very hot, very flat pitches. He was 17, and I was 21, and anybody could see he was a tremendously talented player," Atherton said on Sky Sports Cricket while talking about Tendulkar.
"He had time, he had poise, he had all the shots and, he had a beautiful temperament. But you know, there's no guarantee at that stage that he would end up with 15000-odd runs. Take his great schoolmate, Vinod Kambli... a couple of years later, when we went to India in 1993, he got a double-hundred, looked a fantastic player, but he fell by the wayside of it.
"Every player's first responsibility is to try to make the most of the talent at your disposal. How you do that is up to yourself, but you can't say Sachin didn't expoit his talent to the fullest," he added.
Root on Friday surpassed Ricky Ponting to take the second spot in the list of batters with most runs in Test cricket history. Sachin Tendulkar is at the helm with 15921 runs.