Sachin Helped Me: Kambli

'I am fine now. My wife Andrea takes good care of me.'

Vinod Kambli revealed that his childhood friend Sachin Tendulkar came forward to help him financially during his surgeries following a heart attack in 2013.

'Sachin is my childhood friend, he helped me a lot. I underwent two operations in Lilavati (the hospital in Bandra, north west Mumbai), he helped me financially during the two surgeries in 2013,' Kambli revealed on the Vickey Lalwani Show on YouTube.

Reflecting on his health issues, Kambli said he is doing better now after being hospitalised at three different places about a month ago.

'Urine was a problem, it was just flowing. I just collapsed and my son and daughter picked me up. I got admitted in three hospitals one month back.'

'I am fine now. My wife Andrea takes good care of me. She took me to the hospital thrice. She told, "You have to come back fully fit" and that is how I was back.'

Kambli denied that his past health problems were linked to alcohol addiction, saying: 'No, no. I had stopped drinking and smoking six months ago. I was driving when I suddenly collapsed, and my wife Andrea rushed me to Lilavati Hospital. Who gets two heart attacks? She stood by me throughout.'

Kapil Dev recently urged Kambli to address his health issues, saying he needs to make efforts to overcome the crisis.

'We should all try to support him. But more than us, he has to support himself. We can't look after anybody if that person can't look after himself,' Kapil said on Monday.

'All the cricketers feel very sad about what we have seen. I wish his closest friends can try to get him some help, to look after himself, to go back to rehab. People do get this illness, but you have to get back to rehab.'

Kambli, 52, responded positively to Kapil's pleas saying: 'I am ready to go to rehab. As long as my family is with me, I am not scared of anything.'

When asked about his remarks about Tendulkar in 2009, where he expressed frustration that his former team-mate had not helped him enough, Kambli clarified: 'I was really frustrated back then, and it came out in the moment.'

He also disclosed that Ajay Jadeja has also been a great support and had visited him in Mumbai. 'Ajay Jadeja called me, he is my good friend. Jadeja visited me at my residence.'

Kambli also stated that the BCCI has been in touch with him through General Manager Abey Kuruvilla.

'Definitely they will help,' Kambli said. 'Abey Kuruvilla is with BCCI, he is in touch with me and he is also in touch with my wife.'