Jonty excited to move to Sweden

PROTEAS legend Jonty Rhodes is preparing to relocate to Europe to join the Swedish Cricket Federation on a full-time contract.

Rhodes, 51, is currently working at the IPL in the UAE as the Kings XI Punjab fielding coach.

He will undertake a variety of roles ranging from overseeing coaching and development initiatives from the grassroots level all the way up to the senior national teams at the ICC Associate Member Nation.

“I am really excited to relocate to Sweden with my family and work together with the Swedish Cricket community, “said Rhodes, who will move with children aged 13, 10, five and three.

“This opportunity has come at a perfect time and I am grateful to be able to invest my energies in a completely new environment. I can’t wait to get started.”

In this current period of uncertainty in South African cricket with various agendas at play particularly related to race division, Rhodes has been one of the more clearer thinkers of late.

An electric fielder and nuggety middle-order batsman who played 52 Tests and 245 ODIs for the Proteas from virtually immediately after SA returned from isolation in 1992 until 2003, acknowledged his “white privilege” recently.

Rhodes claimed his statistics were “average” when selected and possibly only received an opportunity to play for SA because “I literally was competing only with the white players”.

He reiterated this stance this week to the Hindustan Times. “This white privilege still extends and carries on generation after generation, it is difficult for young black children coming up in a disadvantaged community to have a better life than their parents just because of lack of facilities. There is also so much corruption.” |