Jonty Rhodes takes up dual role of batting and fielding coach at Punjab Kings

Punjab Kings fielding coach Jonty Rhodes has taken up the additional role of batting coach following the departure of Wasim Jaffer.

Rhodes is considered one of the best fielders of all time and also made more than 8000 runs for South Africa.

The 52-year-old was also sitting alongside head coach Anil Kumble and co-owners at the IPL auction table last week. Rhodes made 5935 runs in 245 ODIs and 2532 runs in 52 Tests.

While Kumble will work with the spinners, Damien Wright remains the fast bowling coach. Andy Flower, who was the assistant coach last season, has taken up the head coach role at new franchise Lucknow Super Giants.

Punjab Kings, who have never won an IPL title and last reached the final in 2014, are confident of going all the way following a “successful” auction where they bought the likes of Shikhar Dhawan, Shahrukh Khan, Liam Livingstone, Jonny Bairstow, Odean Smith, Kagiso Rabada and India U-19 star Raj Bawa.

Punjab went into the auction with the maximum purse having retained only Mayank Agarwal and Arshdeep Singh.

The team will also decide on the captaincy soon.

Retained opener Mayank Agarwal, who has performed consistently for the team, had led the the team in KL Rahul’s absence last season when the latter was injured.

India opener Dhawan has emerged as a strong candidate for captaincy. He is senior to Agarwal and a consistent performer in the IPL. Dhawan has briefly captained Sunrisers Hyderabad.

“The team is keen to have an Indian captain and its choice will be announced shortly,” a BCCI official said.