Jonty Rhodes Joins Race To Become Team India's Fielding Coach: Report

Jonty Rhodes has made the race to become the next fielding coach of India interesting as he has applied for the post of fielding coach of the Indian cricket team, a report in Mumbai Mirror suggests. Rhodes is regarded to be the best fielder that the game has seen till now. His fielding skills were beyond every other player and he also remains to be the only player to win a Man of the Match award for his fielding.

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The former South African player has been a role model for those who want to be good fielders and with him entering the race, the things have become quite interesting. He will surely give a tough competition to R Sridhar, the present fielding coach of the Indian cricket team.

Rhodes, who has a strong connection with India, served as the fielding coach of Mumbai Indians from 2009 to 2017. He left the job to oversee his business and was replaced by James Pamment. Apart from Mumbai Indians, he has had coaching stints with Sri Lanka, Kenya and Pakistan.

R Sridhar is credited to by many for raising their fielding standards. Under him, the team has improved as a fielding unit. He has developed a method of judging a player on ball to ball basis and is a strong contender to retain the job. Although with Rhodes joining in, Sridhar will get a tough competition.

Rhodes played 52 Tests and 245 ODIs for South Africa. Since then, he has coached a number of teams.
As of now, only Rhodes has applied for this job and no other former player has applied for this position. Overall, BCCI seems to have received just one application (for batting coach) in form of J Arun Kumar.

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The veteran coach has thrown his hat in the ring to be the batting coach of the Indian cricket team. The former Karnataka player has been part of his state’s coaching staff and was also in the backroom staff of Kings XI Punjab.

The process to appoint new coaches will begin soon. The present coaching staff will be travelling to West Indies for the series as it was given an extension for 45 days.