Mumbai: Vinod Kambli, the former Indian batsman once considered as gifted as his school friend Sachin Tendulkar, was recovering in a Mumbai hospital on Saturday after a suspected heart attack, doctors and his family said.
Kambli, 41, who had undergone angioplasty on two blocked arteries last year, was admitted to the Lilavati Hospital on Friday morning after complaining of chest pain while driving.
''He is in the intensive care unit and we are monitoring his medical parameters,'' hospital director Narendra Trivedi said.
''He is stable and there is nothing to worry about.''
Kambli's wife, Andrea, issued a statement, saying he is ''stable and recovering well''.
Kambli shot to fame along with Tendulkar in 1988 when the two teenagers shared a then world record 664-run partnership in an interschool match in Mumbai, with both batsmen making unbeaten triple centuries.
While Tendulkar retired in November as the world's leading run-maker in both Test and one-day cricket and with an unprecedented 100 international centuries against his name, Kambli's career faded after a bright start.
The flamboyant left-hander hit two double centuries and two hundreds in his first eight Test innings after earning a debut in 1993.
But another three-figure knock in Tests eluded him.
Kambli played the last of his 17 Tests in 1995 before he had turned 24, finishing with 1084 runs at a healthy average of 54.20.
He also scored 2477 runs in 104 one-day internationals, with two centuries.
He played his last international match in 2000 and retired from first-class cricket in 2011.
The flamboyant former cricketer recently hit the headlines when he expressed his disappointment at not being mentioned in Tendulkar's farewell speech when the icon called it quits from international cricket earlier this month.
Tendulkar and Kambli were close friends at the start of their careers but drifted apart. Kambli had recently stated that he and Tendulkar have not been on talking terms for the past seven years.
In 2009, Kambli even contested the Maharashtra assembly elections but lost. The same year, he took part in the reality show Big Boss.
The cricketer also acted in Hindi films 'Anarth' starring Sanjay Dutt and 'Pal Pal Dil Ke Ssaat'.
