Dev also said that young players need to be passionate to achieve something.
1983 World Cup-winning Indian captain Kapil Dev warned young players by citing the example of Sachin Tendulkar and Vinod Kambli. He called the former a great example of talent plus hard work and believes that if a player is talented but not hardworking he can go the latter's way.
Sachin Tendulkar is rated highly among the best batters to have played the game of cricket. Many cricketers idolise him and he has shown the way to various players how to approach their game. But many don’t know the hard work the former legendary cricketer put in.
He started his journey at the age of 16 and in his illustrious career spanning 24 years, the prolific Indian batter scored 34,357 across the formats to go with 100 centuries. The Mumbaikar etched almost every batting record to his name, some of which are still unbroken.
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On the other hand, Kambli tasted great success during the early 1990s but his poor form saw his downfall and then later he became part of many controversies. He scored 1084 runs in 17 Tests and scored 2477 runs in 104 ODIs for India.
Kapil talked about the importance of self-love and doing things for passion, not to impress others. He gave the example of Sachin Tendulkar and Vinod Kambli suggesting that if not backed by hard work, talent is of no use.
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“Sometimes, youngsters take up something to impress others. I believe that it is important to love yourself first and bring passion to whatever you like. There are no substitutes for passion, hard work and commitment.
"Sachin Tendulkar is the perfect example of talent plus hard work. If you are talented but not hard-working enough, then you can go the Vinod Kambli way. If your destiny is beautiful, why worry about the road ahead,” Kapil Dev was quoted as saying by Entertainment Times.
Dev said that if someone is passionate enough he or she can achieve anything, as they need to give it their best, practice both day and night and forget about time and everything else.
“I don’t believe in speaking much and I have always been a man of action. I believe that if you are passionate enough, you can achieve anything. While practicing as a youngster, I would play for hours and I wouldn’t know the difference between day and night. I would wonder why I couldn’t carry on playing at night. When you love something, you forget about the time and everything else," he said.
(Entertainment Times inputs)