Kambli's brother provides update on his friendship with Tendulkar: 'Sachin dada has always...'

Sachin Tendulkar and Vinod Kambli’s cricketing careers, and by extension their lives, couldn’t be more contrasting even though they two started playing together as kids in the maidans of Mumbai. While one would go on to become one of the greatest the sport has ever seen, the other would fizzle out after a promising start and would fail to live up to his vast potential.

Their friendship too has witnessed its fair share of ups and downs over the years, hitting an all-time low at one point when Kambli accused Tendulkar of not doing enough to support him during his hour of crisis.

‘He was closest to him’

However, Vinod’s brother Virendra insists that the bond between the two childhood friends remains “very strong” with Tendulkar checking on the former left-handed batter and his family from time to time.

“Both had the same talent. You can’t say my brother was greater than Sachin or vice versa. They were both the same. I never heard my brother say he was better than Sachin,” Virendra told journalist Vickey Lalwani.

“Sachin dada has always supported Vinod. Their friendship is still very strong. Sachin calls and checks on him with Andrea (Hewitt, Vinod’s wife).

“Sachin dada. He was closest to him. I don’t know about others, but I saw them together when I went to watch Ranji Trophy matches. I would go to the dressing room to eat, and Sachin dada, Vinod, and I would sit together and have fun. We would joke around and have a good time,” he added.

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Tendulkar and Kambli had trained under the late Ramakant Achrekar, considered one of the most iconic cricket coaches in India at the Shivaji Park ground in Dadar, Mumbai.

The two made their international debuts around the same time – Tendulkar during India’s tour of Pakistan in 1989 and Kambli against the same team, but in Sharjah in 1991. Kambli’s international run, however, would gradually fizzle out after a promising start during the 1990s, with the southpaw making the last of his 121 international appearances (17 Tests, 104 ODIs) against Sri Lanka in October 2000.

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Tendulkar, meanwhile, had already established himself as the ‘God of Cricket’ around this time, and would go on to smash multiple records in his career – finishing as the leading run-scorer in Tests and ODIs after making 664 international appearances and being the only cricketer to score a century of centuries.