Why Dravid's 'talent' lesson perfectly explains Tendulkar's success after Kambli hit Kumble into the stone wall

When it comes to talent in cricket, legendary cricketer Rahul Dravid believes there is more to it than just a batter's timing or a bowler's pace. While these skills are important, Dravid emphasizes the importance of other facets that contribute to a player's talent. A recent video of Vinod Kambli, a former Indian cricketer, resurfaced on social media, bringing attention to his once-promising career that sadly took a downward spiral. Kambli, who was childhood friends with Sachin Tendulkar and trained under coach Ramakant Achrekar, was seen in a sorry state at Achrekar's memorial event. The incident sparked conversations about lost talent in cricket and how a talented player like Kambli could have lost his way both in life and in the sport. Dravid's perspective on talent goes beyond just skill on the field, highlighting the importance of character, determination, and discipline in shaping a truly talented cricketer.

In the old video, Dravid discussed the misconception that talent in cricket is judged solely by the player's skills with bat and ball. The only Indian cricketer, apart from Sachin Tendulkar, to score more than 10,000 runs in Tests and ODIs, Dravid said equal importance must be given to traits such as discipline, courage, and determination to find the right package.

"I think we judge talent wrong. How do we judge talent? And I've made the same mistake. We judge talent by people's ability to strike a cricket ball. The sweetness or the timing of a cricket ball. That's the only thing we see as talent. Things like determination, courage, discipline, and temperament are also talents. When we are judging talent, I think we've got to look at the whole package," he had said.

Dravid gave the example of Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag to make his point clear. "It's a hard thing to explain but some people just have the gift of timing and ball-striking. Sourav Ganguly just had that ability to time a cover drive. He just had it. You could see. Schin has it. A Virus has it. You wouldn't say that about someone like Gautam (Gambhir) as much as you would do for some of these other guys. Not that Gautam is less successful. So that's what we see as talent. We don't look at the other side of talent. We say, a talented player didn't make it. We always look at this side but maybe he didn't have the other talents," Dravid added.

Dravid took Vinod Kambli's name to explain what can happen if a fantastic batter doesn't have the other aspects of the talent package.

"I hate to use but Viniod's probably been one of the nicest guys that I've met. Vinod had an incredible ball-striking ability. I remember a game in Rajkot, Vinod got 150 against (Javagal) Srinath and Anil (Kumble). It was incredible. First ball Anil came onto bowl, he hit him straight into the stone wall. In Rajkot, there used to be a stone wall. He hit it bang straight onto it. I mean, we were all shocked, wow it was amazing,. How do you do that. But maybe he didn't have the talent in the other areas to understand what it took to be an international cricketer to deal with the stress and the pressure. I can only guess but maybe Sachin had that much more. That's why Sachin is where he is today," he said.