Vinod Kambli is a former Indian cricketer, who played for India as a middle order batsman. He is one of the childhood friends 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.
In an interview taken by a News Channel, Vinod Kambli was asked few questions about the 1996 World Cup. Team India was all set to go to the finals, but unfortunately, it didn’t. As India crushed its rivals Pakistan by 39 runs in the previous match and was looking confident to go to the finals.
India won the toss and Azharuddin had gone against everyone’s thinking and elected to field first. Though Sri Lanka lost two quick wickets of Jayasurya, and Kaluwitharana, Aravinda de Silva’s 66 from 47 balls and RS Mahanama’s half century managed Sri Lanka to score 251 in 50 overs. India was confident about the target as they defended 287 in the previous match against Pakistan in Bangalore.
Tendulkar and Sanjay Manjrekar played a good innings so far their partnership was 90 runs. Here comes the sad situation for team India. Suddenly, Sachin was stumped by Kaluwitharana in 23th over. India’s equation from being 98-1 in 22.4 overs went to 120-8 in 34.1 overs with Vinod Kambli and Srinath on the crease.
Irritated and disappointed fans in Kolkata stadium set fire to some areas of the stands and thrown water bottles onto the field. The officials tried to stop the crowd doing so but nothing changed for a long time. Finally, the match referee stopped the game and the game was awarded to Sri Lanka by default.
The dream of 90 crore Indians has become fire in the water and Kambli left the field with tears rolling down his face.