The Jonty Rhodes legend may have begun with the diving run-out of Inzamam-ul-Haq during the 1992 World Cup but it would never have grown as it did without genuine substance. Rhodes worked harder than anyone else in a team of hard workers, frequently delaying the team bus at the end of practice for one more round of reflex catches hit from ten metres or less. Nobody has ever fielded better in the key one-day position of backward point, where he leapt like a salmon, threw off balance, and stopped singles by reputation alone. He laboured just as hard over his batting which needed, and underwent, a complete technical overhaul in 1997 - whereupon he averaged 50 for the rest of his Test career, until he gave it up to concentrate on one-day cricket in 2000. The problem was a tendency to bring the bat down from gully and through to midwicket, a legacy of the extraordinary hockey skills that brought him selection for the Olympic Games in 1996 - an offer he had to refuse. Few batsmen have turned the quick single into a finer art form, and his willingness to experiment and adapt enabled him to lead the way with the reverse-sweep under Bob Woolmer's tutelage. But Rhodes was just as likely to delay the bus by relentlessly signing autographs for gaggles of persistent children; the arrival of his own, a daughter, was instrumental in his semi-retirement. Indeed, Rhodes may have become the first cricketer to claim paternity leave. Rightly, there is give and take in Rhodes's life. He has more endorsements than any team-sport player in South Africa's history, is at the forefront of the sporting dotcom revolution, and is constantly exploring the boundaries and horizons of commerce. His final retirement was hastened by an inopportune finger-fracture early in the 2003 World Cup, although there was still time for a successful farewell season in county cricket for Gloucestershire. Neil Manthorp

Wisden Cricketer of the Year 1999

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