Jonty Rhodes turns 51: South African's best run-outs ever ft. Ricky Ponting; watch video

Former South African batsman Jonty Rhodes is widely regarded as one of the greatest fielders of all time. The cricketer-turned-coach represented his national side in 52 Tests and 245 ODIs between 1992 and 2003. He held an impressive batting average of mid-35 in both formats to aggregate 8,467 international runs across 300 innings.

The veteran campaigner turned 51 on Monday, July 27. To commemorate the Jonty Rhodes birthday occasion, here is a look at some of the best fielding performances from his playing career.  

Jonty Rhodes birthday wishes by ICC

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Cricket Australia celebrates Jonty Rhodes birthday

On Monday, Cricket Australia took to their social media accounts to re-share one of their old compilation videos chronicling some majestic works of Jonty Rhodes ‘Down Under’. In a 2 minutes 20 seconds video, the South African livewire can be seen diving, sliding and throwing with the footage recounting some of his best fielding efforts in Australia from the 1990s and early 2000s. Among his many victims in the video, Jonty Rhodes can also be seen sending former Australian captain Ricky Ponting back to the pavilion with some on-field brilliance and direct hitting abilities. Interestingly, Ricky Ponting himself is considered as one of the greats on the field who pulled-off some deluxe catches and runouts in his era.

Celebrate Jonty Rhodes birthday with some of his livewire brilliance, watch video

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Jonty Rhodes in IPL 2020

Jonty Rhodes is expected to join the Kings XI Punjab (KXIP) camp for the Indian Premier League 2020 (IPL 2020) season in September. He was recently appointed as the fielding coach of the franchise. During IPL 2020, he will be seen working alongside KXIP’s head coach Anil Kumble and batting coach Wasim Jaffer for the KL Rahul-led line-up.

AB de Villiers cites Jonty Rhodes Inzamam run out as his inspiration behind cricket

On July 16, former South African captain AB de Villiers described Rhodes and his iconic runout of Inzamam-ul-Haq as the reason behind taking up cricket. He said that Rhodes was a “standout” performer whose 1992 World Cup runout made a huge impact on him at a young age itself. While interacting with BBC London’s Kevin Hand for Middlesex Cricket, AB de Villiers said that he witnessed the runout live on television when he was just eight years old. The Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) batsman also admitted to practising the same runout “every day” of his life.

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Jonty Rhodes Inzamam run out in 1992 World Cup, watch video

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Image credit: ICC Twitter