IPL 2022: Jonty Rhodes takes up dual coaching role at Punjab Kings
As per the latest developments, Jonty Rhodes has taken up the additional responsibility of batting coach at Punjab Kings following the departure of Wasim Jaffer. Jonty has been serving the franchise as the fielding coach since the last few seasons. However, he’ll now work as the batting coach as well. It must be noted that Rhodes, one of the best fielders in cricket history, scored over 8000 international runs for South Africa.
The 52-year-old also seems to an important figure in decision making at the franchise. He was sitting alongside head coach Anil Kumble and other PBKS officials at the IPL auction table last week. As far as his batting credentials are concerned, Rhodes slammed 5935 runs in 245 ODIs and 2532 runs in 52 Tests. Head coach Kumble will now assist the spinners while Damien Wright will continue serving as the fast-bowling coach.
Punjab Kings were impressive at the auction table
Assistant coach of the franchise last season, Andy Flower has become the head coach of new franchise Lucknow Super Giants. Meanwhile, Punjab Kings were impressive at the auction table as they walked away with a formidable squad. Notably, they entered the event with the biggest purse amount of INR 72 crore, having retained only Mayank Agarwal and Arshdeep Singh.
In Shikhar Dhawan and Kagiso Rabada, PBKS bought two of the 10 marquee players. They tried retaining their core by reacquiring services of Shahrukh Khan, Harpreet Brar and Ishan Porel. The side looks balanced on paper and would like to lift the elusive title this time around. Meanwhile, the franchise is yet to finalized their captain and Shikhar Dhawan is the front-runner to get the role.
Punjab Kings squad for IPL 2022: Mayank Agarwal, Arshdeep Singh, Shikhar Dhawan, Kagiso Rabada, Jonny Bairstow, Rahul Chahar, Shahrukh Khan, Harpreet Brar, Prabhsimran Singh, Jitesh Sharma, Ishan Porel, Liam Livingstone, Odean Smith, Sandeep Sharma, Raj Bawa, Rishi Dhawan, Prerak Mankad, Vaibhav Arora, Writtick Chatterjee, Baltej Dhanda, Ansh Patel, Nathan Ellis, Atharva Taide, Bhanuka Rajapaksa, Benny Howell
