{"id":11423,"date":"2019-07-27T18:30:47","date_gmt":"2019-07-27T13:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kyrosports.com\/?p=11423"},"modified":"2019-07-27T18:30:47","modified_gmt":"2019-07-27T13:00:47","slug":"jonty-rhodes-best-fielder-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kyrosports.com\/jonty-rhodes-best-fielder-ever\/","title":{"rendered":"A Tribute To Jonty Rhodes: The Man Every Fielder Ever Wants To Be"},"content":{"rendered":"

For as long as it is played, Cricket shall always produce a question to which there can never be a complete, unifying answer. Is it a batsman’s game or is it the dominion where the bowler rules? <\/em><\/strong>And then came a man called Jonty Rhodes, who furthered the discussion.
\nIn a sense, it is a more valid albeit and divisive question than the classic modern-era probe often debated until the wee hours of the morning: “Sachin<\/em> <\/a>Tendulkar or Brian Lara<\/em>?”
\nTo their merit, fans have and will always cite the glory of Sachin’s 100 centuries, Lara’s 400, Dravid playing the most number of Test deliveries and Kallis’s majesty. But merely putting Sir Don’s name in the list, seemingly settles the passionately argued discussion in the batsman’s favor.
\nOn the other hand, those who’ve witnessed Akram’s spells, Lillee’s fury, Warne’s magic and “Thommo’s” hostility would always cry out loud in the favor of the ball.
\nYou can add a few thousand illustrious examples on either side only to trigger an endless war of the tongue.
\nBut, it could be said, if there was ever a man who neutralized the discussion- is the bat greater or the ball<\/em>– then it would have to be Jonty Rhodes.
\nLong before de Villiers emerged as a Renaissance artist in the game, innovating and batting parallelly, Lyon emerged as the GOAT, several years before one witnessed such a thing as an ODI double hundred, and decades before T20 even came into existence, there was a certain Jonathan Jonty Rhodes.
\nThe United States houses the complicated and mysterious Area 51, a zone where allegedly, aliens move about and where UFOs have been sighted.<\/p>\n

But back in the 90s and 2000s, Jonty Rhodes was Cricket’s flying\u00a0object<\/em>.<\/h2>\n

\"Jonty
In his day, he was among the most handsome cricketers apart from being among the fittest (The Hindu)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>
\n 
\nHe wasn’t merely stationed at the precarious ‘point’ region. He manned it with hawkish eyes. He made it into his own zone sans any private membership.
\nRhodes red-alerted the Point region, the square of the wicket, to batsmen as if debarring them from entering a ‘Do Not Enter’ zone.
\nBack in the days where a 270 on the board seemed contemporary cricket’s version of 310-320, an era where there were no powerplays, Jonty Rhodes’ commendable, awe-inspiring fielding was in itself, the greatest powerplay.<\/p>\n

Commendable fielding efforts<\/h2>\n

The nineties were a time about Australia’s doggedness in ODI cricket. It was also an era where the contests between Sachin and Lara reached peak crescendo. The likes of Ponting, Dravid, Arvinda, and others were going great guns.
\nThe nineties were about the verbal volleys thrown by the likes of Allan Donald and Michael Slater to which the likes of Atherton and others responded, often subduedly. This was a time when Wasim and Waqar were firing all cylinders, where a 300 was a rare, dream score and where contests in the sandy deserts of Sharjah electrified spectators like a live Doors concert.
\nRare were instances when you regarded someone for a fielding effort. Even rarer were occasions where a mainstream fielder bettered a batsman or a bowler to be awarded the man of the match.<\/p>\n

But for Jonty Rhodes, though, this wasn’t off logic.<\/h2>\n

\"Jonty
Jonty was also a skilled batsman down the order, with 2 ODI hundreds and 33 fifties( Cricket.com.au)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>
\n 
\nIt became fervent cricketing practice.
\nBecause Jonty Rhodes- who turns 50 today- even managed a man-of-the-match for a thrilling fielding feat that hasn’t been bettered in over two and a half decades of its inception.
\nBack in 1993, he caught 5 West Indies batsmen at Bombay’s Brabourne, resulting in a world-record feat, the most catches by a single fielder in an ODI.
\nMoreover, he would cast his magic in first-class cricket. No other fielder in the history of this great game has gone on to win a player of the match award despite not being in the playing eleven.
\nWhen Rhodes caught 7 batsmen in 11, in a first-class game, despite being counted as a substitute fielder, he did Cricket’s version of Mission Impossible.
\nEven to this day, whenever someone speaks of outstanding fielding efforts, then the famous image comprising of three shattered stumps, one batsman in a green jersey, and a fielder completely airborne, strikes the mind.<\/p>\n

The Jonty Rhodes legacy<\/h2>\n

\"Jonty
Rhodes personified all-round excellence in fielding (Network 18)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>
\n 
\nIf the guard of honor extended to Sachin is the greatest vignette for a batsman or if England’s winning the 2019 World Cup, drenched in the froth and sparkle of champagne is the greatest team-click then Jonty Rhodes diving full length to affect a run-out is modern fielding’s evergreen wallpaper in world cricket.
\nNone before Rhodes and few since him have done as much to give fielding a position on its own among batting and bowling; rescuing its seemingly caged essence that of being cricket’s ‘third department.’
\nHere was a man who put up a case for the men in the field, those who undergo the toil and face the severity of heat, the same as an under-pressure batsman or bowler.
\nIn a sport that reserves very less for the fielding effort, Jonty Rhodes embodied often freely-advocated advice: catches win matches.<\/em>
\nWay before Jacques Kallis<\/a>, arguably, the greatest modern-age cricketer even made his debut, his famous compatriot had emerged as a model figure for fielding excellence.
\nToday, if you stroll into a charity match at the Lord’s, witness a club contest in Harare, or even glance your eyes in a maidan at Lahore, you may get to hear a passionately delivered speck of encouragement, “come on, Jaunty!”
\nIt’s a reference to an excellent piece of fielding.
\nThe daunting hundreds, the string of match-winning innings may not belong to him. But what certainly does is a timeless legacy as a talent who could be likened to a sniper ever ready to give his side a meaningful breakthrough. Salute, Jonty!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For as long as it is played, Cricket shall always produce a question to which there can never be a complete, unifying answer. Is it a batsman’s game or is it the dominion where the bowler rules? And then came a man called Jonty Rhodes, who furthered the discussion. In a sense, it is a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":11424,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,818],"tags":[2807,2808,2809,2810,2811,2812,2813,2814],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kyrosports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11423"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kyrosports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kyrosports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kyrosports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kyrosports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kyrosports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11423\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kyrosports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kyrosports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kyrosports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kyrosports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}