Suresh Raina thanks Jonty Rhodes for giving him the best fielder’s rank

Former South African cricketer Jonty Rhodes recently picked in an interview the top five fielders he felt served the game passionately. Among his preferences, the top spot went to India’s Suresh Raina and the experienced national team cricketer did not delay in expressing his gratitude to the legend, arguably the best fielder modern cricket has witnessed.

Rhodes picked two South Africans – AB de Villiers and Herschelle Gibbs – in that order among his top five apart from Australia’s Andrew Symonds and former England captain Paul Collingwood. However, it was Raina who the 49-year-old chose for the top slot and he had a reason for that.

Rhodes, who made his mark in fielding in international cricket with his incredible flying dismissal of Pakistan’s Inzamam-ul-Haq in the 1992 World Cup said he was a great fan of Raina and granted the special rank to him owing to the fact that he fielded on rough Indian surfaces and never hesitated to dive on the ground irrespective of the consequences.

Jonty Rhodes’ ‘highest standards’ on field inspired Suresh Raina

In his tweet, the UP cricketer thanked Rhodes for keeping him higher in the fielders’ ranking throughout and said it was the latter who had inspired him always by setting the highest standards on the field himself.

So glad to have retained my number 1⃣ spot on your list all these years, @JontyRhodes8 ! You've always inspired me by setting the highest standards on the field! https://t.co/DD93jfmj5Y

— Suresh Raina🇮🇳 (@ImRaina) February 13, 2019

A regular member of India’s limited-overs squads when MS Dhoni was at the helm, 32-year-old Raina last played for India against England in an ODI in July last year though he is still a force in T20s and play for Chennai Super Kings in the Indian Premier League (IPL) alongside Dhoni. His fielding has also been an asset for his captains — be it in international or domestic cricket.

Raina has played in 226 ODI scoring over 5,600 runs at an average of 35.31 with five hundreds. He also has scored a hundred in T20Is as one of the few Indian batsmen. He never really made it in the Test arena, playing only 18 of them in five years, scoring 768 runs at an average of just over 26.

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