Birthday Tribute | Jonty Rhodes | 27 July 2026 | Durban’s Super Giants (fielding coach) · South Africa (Proteas, former) · Cricket
Ask any cricket fan over forty to name the greatest piece of fielding they have ever seen, and most will describe the same six seconds: a South African going horizontal through the air, ball in one outstretched hand, a Pakistani batsman turning back a fraction too late. They will get the score wrong. They will forget who was bowling. They will never forget the shape of that dive. It belongs to Jonathan Neil Rhodes, born in Pietermaritzburg on 27 July 1969, who turns 57 today.
ROOTS: A STRICT HOME IN PIETERMARITZBURG
Jonty Rhodes grew up the son of Digby Rhodes, a deputy headmaster and former rugby scrumhalf, and Tish Rhodes, a keen tennis player. Sport was not optional in the household; it was the organising principle. He has since credited the discipline of that upbringing, shared with his brother Clinton, with shaping the man he became.
At around six years old, Jonty Rhodes began falling and blacking out without warning. His parents took him to a physician who suspected a mild form of epilepsy, though a firm diagnosis took years and several neurologists to confirm.
There was little public understanding of the condition at the time. His parents chose not to treat him differently, encouraging him to keep playing sport while steering him away from obvious triggers like head knocks in rugby. He went on to become one of the most recognised public advocates for epilepsy in world sport, working with Epilepsy South Africa long after his playing days ended.
THE EARLY CAREER: TWO SPORTS, ONE FUTURE
Jonty Rhodes played both cricket and hockey to a high standard through school and into the University of Natal, where he studied from 1988 to 1992. He was good enough at hockey to be considered for South Africa’s squad ahead of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, an opportunity that fell away only because the South African hockey team failed to qualify. He tried again for the 1996 Games and missed out through injury. Cricket is what carried his name.
His path to international selection had nothing to do with form. South Africa’s sporting isolation under apartheid meant no South African had played international cricket since 1970. Jonty Rhodes was already 22 by the time the country was readmitted in 1991 and he won his first cap — years that cricketers born a decade earlier had simply never had the chance to play.
THE BREAKTHROUGH: 8 MARCH 1992, THE GABBA
Jonty Rhodes made his One Day International debut for South Africa against Australia at the Sydney Cricket Ground on 26 February 1992, the country’s first match back at a World Cup. Five games into the tournament, in a group match against Pakistan at the Gabba in Brisbane on 8 March, South Africa had posted 211 for 7. Rain revised Pakistan’s target to 194 off 36 overs, and by the 31st over, Inzamam-ul-Haq and Imran Khan had Pakistan cruising at 135 for 2. Inzamam missed a heave off Brian McMillan, the ball rolled to backward point, and he set off for a leg-bye before Imran sent him back.
Jonty Rhodes closed in from a deep position, gathered the ball in his right hand, and instead of throwing, launched himself horizontally at the stumps with the ball still in his grip. All three stumps came down. Inzamam was short. South Africa won by 20 runs. Rhodes explained the decision afterwards in blunt terms: there was only a fifty percent chance he’d hit the stumps with a throw, and a hundred percent chance if he got there himself, so he went in head-first because it was the fastest way to cover the ground.
THE PINNACLE: A CATCHING RECORD, A REBUILT BATTING GAME, A WISDEN AWARD
Rhodes finished his international career with 139 catches — 105 in ODIs, 34 in Tests — making him the first South African to reach 100 ODI catches. On 14 November 1993, against West Indies at Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai, he took five catches in a single ODI innings, a world record for a fielder outside the wicketkeeping position. His batting is what surprised his own teammates.
Jonty Rhodes overhauled his technique in 1997, and from mid-1998 onward he averaged 45 in Test cricket for the rest of his career. That form peaked in South Africa’s 1998 away series in England, where he made 95 at Birmingham, a century at Lord’s, and 85 at Headingley, before following it with 87 and a rapid century against West Indies later that year as South Africa completed a 5–0 series sweep.
He finished with 52 Tests for 2,532 runs at 35.66 with three centuries, and 245 ODIs for 5,935 runs at 35.11 with two centuries and 33 fifties. He was part of the South African side that won the 1998 ICC KnockOut Trophy, the country’s first ICC title, and was named a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1999.
A finger fracture during the 2003 World Cup ended his international career. He closed out his playing days with a single county season for Gloucestershire later that year, scoring 1,293 runs at 58.77 with five centuries — the only batsman at the club to pass 1,000 runs that season.
FROM BACKWARD POINT TO THE COACHING BOX
Jonty Rhodes briefly worked as an account executive at Standard Bank after retiring before cricket pulled him back, first as South Africa’s fielding coach and then into nine seasons with Mumbai Indians in the IPL. He later coached fielding for Kings XI Punjab and spent three seasons with Lucknow Super Giants before the franchise moved on from him ahead of the 2026 IPL season, replacing him with Abhay Sharma.
He remains Durban’s Super Giants fielding coach in South Africa’s SA20, a role he has held since the competition began, and holds a consultant post with the Sri Lanka national team. He has applied for India’s national fielding coach job more than once and been passed over each time, a decision he has joked about publicly rather than resented. He married Kate McCarthy in 1994; they had two children, Daniella and Ross, before divorcing in 2013.
He remarried in 2014, to Melanie Wolf, and the couple’s two children, India Jeanne and Nathan, were both born in Mumbai. Jonty Rhodes is now based in Goa.
Happy 57th birthday, Jonty. From all of us at Just Plain Sport — for every kid still practising that dive on a back lawn somewhere, you started something that still hasn’t stopped. 🎂🏏
📸 Images via SA Cricket / PTI
