Former South Africa batsman Jonty Rhodes has joined Swedish Cricket Federation as head coach as he and his family will be moving to the country permanently. Rhodes, currently in UAE as fielding coach of Kings XI Punjab in the IPL, is set to do a lot more for Sweden cricket apart from being the head coach of the national team."My reach out to the Swedish Cricket Federation was literally three months ago, so a great deal has happened in the past three months," Rhodes told Emerging Cricket."I’m relocating with my family, so it’s not a consulting role. It’s something I want to do obviously long term." "With children at this stage in the house who are 13, 10, 5 and 3, we just said ‘if there’s ever going to be a move, it needs to be now.
Rhodes, who played 52 Tests and 245 ODIs, said his focus would be on the overall development of the game in Sweden."We want to have a very clear and present pathway not only for our players but our coaches and the people who are working around cricket," he said. "A big part of my focus is not just how do we make the high-performance end of it work, but how do we ensure that, from a coaching standpoint, do we make sure the coaches themselves are excited about imparting cricket skills to kids, and making sure that they do the basics really, really well?
"The last two years I have loved coaching grassroots and in the growing of the game just because I think my roots have always been around teaching. I’m not looking to burst in and take jobs away from people. I just want to help grow and develop the game."Benn Harradine, the Swedish Cricket Federation Performance Director, said he was looking forward to having Rhodes on board."It’s just been really good to get to know him, the person, not the cricketer, but Jonty as a man, and I’m really excited to get him over here to Sweden," Harradine told Emerging Cricket. Sweden are currently ranked 43 in the world.
