Jonty Rhodes picks his choice of World's best batsman

Former South African cricketer and one of the best fielders of his time Jonty Rhodes is in India. He is here to work with a T20 league which will be working in scouting young talents from various parts of the country.

In a conversation with PTI, Rhodes talked about different facets of Indian cricket. He also picked his choice among Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers and Steve Smith, as who he thinks he is currently the world's best batsman.

Talking about the best batsman he answered in his own typical way.

“I am standing in India and you would think I am biased, but with the performances Virat Kohli has put in so far and in every format of the game, he has to be the No.1. AB de Villiers has had an operation, so he will be out for a while. I watched Steve Smith in South Africa and he is okay. Virat is one guy you would like to see heading back to the dressing room if you are the opposition bowler or the fielding team because he is phenomenal. He is a finisher par excellence. At this stage, Virat Kohli is no 1,” quoted Jonty Rhodes.

He, however, feels that the workload of Kohli might not help him stay the same for a period as long as Sachin Tendulkar. “With the amount of cricket Virat Kohli is playing right now (since the IPL has been introduced), it will be tough for him to maintain that sort of consistency over a long period of time. Added to that is the burden of captaincy. So far he has performed really well in the short span as captain and he has done well obviously in the build up to that. But can one maintain that consistency when one has the leadership of the country sitting on one’s shoulders too?” asked the swashbuckling fielder.

Rhodes was then asked if MS Dhoni could play the 2019 World Cup.

“It is a long time. But have you seen him between the wickets? He is fast as anything and his glove-work is incredible. He is still a great finisher of the game. So you have got a captain with a great deal of experience. Sometimes it is more than the guy who scores all the runs. What matters is, what are you are adding in the dressing room? That you can’t buy in a grocery store, you really can’t, that’s what experience is. If you have got that in your team environment, someone who is performing and playing well, also adding that sort of element especially in World Cup situation, it is a great advantage!” mentioned Jonty Rhodes.

He also threw his light on split captaincy and why he feels it's not bad to have different captains in different formats.

“From a Team India point of view, you need a happy environment. Sides have shown that you can have a different Test and ODI captains. So it is not a unique situation. Kohli can play under MS Dhoni in limited overs and can captain in Tests. It is about what is producing the results for India. If Dhoni is not performing, he will know when it’s the time to leave. So it’s not for everybody else to speculate and put him under pressure. Kohli has done a great job stepping into the Test arena as a captain and maybe it is a lot to handle,” said Rhodes.

Well Jonty Rhodes is surely a well-wisher of Indian cricket team and his love for the country can be known from the fact that he had named his daughter 'India'.

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