It isn’t every day you get to meet your hero, and I’m so grateful for the opportunity to have met and interviewed mine today. Throughout my childhood, Jonty Rhodes was my inspiration, not just as a cricketer but as a role model. He was never really selected as a batsman or bowler [although later on in his career his batting improved dramatically]. He was selected as a fielder, whose prowess became legendary, and who could turn matches with his field work. I was never a good batsman or bowler, and nobody in my family had ever played cricket before. Rhodes’ example showed me that through fielding I could be part of a team, and cricket gave me so much growing up.

Anyway, here is an exclusive interview with Jonty Rhodes:

For those not familiar with South African cricketer Jonty Rhodes, the Cricinfo cricket website biography of the legendary sportsman is a good place to start:

“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 meters or less. Nobody has ever fielded better in the key one-day position of backward point, where he leapt like a salmon, threw opponents off balance, and stopped singles by reputation alone.”

The 38-year old Rhodes played for the South African national team from 1992 to 2003 until he was forced to retire due to injuries. He was voted one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1999, and is considered the best fielder the game has ever known. A gritty team player, Rhodes was repeatedly selected for the national side for his outstanding fielding, taking the place of batsmen and bowlers. His fielding saved his side many runs, it won games, and won Rhodes legions of followers worldwide.

In Israel this week to play in an invitation team against India A in honor of its 60th anniversary, Rhodes, in the country for the very first time, believes Israelis, who have shown “genius” in making the desert bloom, and are “tenacious” in their defense of their country and families, would make great cricketers. Saying his only experience of Israel was through Leon Uris’ book ‘Exodus’, Rhodes was “desperate” to come to Israel, and is taking the time off between his three games this week to travel to the north and Jerusalem with his wife. “I’m a Christian, so for me this place has a massive relevance and I was desperate to come. Leon Uris’ the Exodus is the closest I’ve ever got. I loved it, couldn’t put it down,” Rhodes says, adding that he hasn’t been to a new country since he played in Bangladesh for the first time in 1998. “My knowledge of Israel comes from the ‘Exodus’ and how tenacious and determined the people here are to have transformed the desert into this thriving economy, its genius, and the people here are tenacious to be able to make a living in a really harsh environment. I think they really would make great cricket players, if you can turn a desert into a garden you would be an awesome cricketer because you have determination and grit,” Rhodes says.

The games between the Israel invitation XI and India A take place in Ashdod Park in three matches on July 13, 14, and 16 starting at 10AM. The matches will be the only sport officially commemorating Israel’s 60th birthday celebrations this year.

The Israeli invitation team will consist of Jewish cricketers from around the world, including former South Africa international player Adam Bacher. Bacher, who captains the Invitation team, has been to Israel on several occasions in the past, and has represented strong South African teams to the Maccabia games.

In an interview with The Jerusalem Post on Friday at the team’s practice ground in Hadar Yosef, Rhodes says developing cricket in a country with no history and culture of the game is difficult, but definitely positive. He also thinks Israelis have what it takes.

Rhodes’ fielding prowess spawned a generation of cricket players who, while not having the talent or skill to become batsmen or bowlers, nevertheless stuck with the game because they could throw themselves around a field and stop a ball with their bodies. Similarly, good coaching was not always available everywhere, and his example proved that a fielder too had a place in the team. That is an important lesson to keep in mind when thinking about developing a game totally alien to a country like Israel, where teaching correct batting and bowling technique may not be the most important part of the game. Coaching youngsters should not focus on technique, but on playing and enjoying the game, Rhodes says. “The West Indians bring their guys [international players] off the beach, same as India and Pakistan. Technique is not the most important thing there, but there are vast amounts of people playing cricket everywhere, and you should play cricket your way.”

The key, Rhodes says, is for administrators to make young players excited about the game, and a good way to do that is through the new 20/20 format, which is an action-packed, condensed form of the longer 50 over game. “Twenty-twenty [twenty overs per side] games are drawing in massive crowds all over the world. In a time when sport has to compete with entertainment [like movies], sport has to become sportainment,” Rhodes says. “Spectators are the key. If people aren’t watching the game, especially if its new to them, they’re not going to pick up heroes, because they’re watching basketball and football. You need to bring people down to a game and 20/20 in SA has introduced a whole new generation to the game. Families can come too, because it’s not as expensive as an international game of cricket played over 50 overs. I think it’s got to be family oriented, get the kids to come down and watch,” Rhodes says.

The twenty-twenty format also suits Israel’s climate, where most of the season takes place in sweltering heat. The shorter form of the game could raise interest in a public accustomed to action-packed sports like soccer and basketball, and who are confounded by the notion of standing around for 9 hours waiting for short bursts of action to occur. Likewise, the fact that a cricket game can last a whole day, and sometimes even five days, and still end in a draw, is just too alien to many Israelis.

In bringing this international match to Israel in celebration of its 60th anniversary, Israel Cricket Association Stanley Perlman hopes to spread the fanfare of the game in locally. “We are building it up. The demand is small, but it is the strongest non-Olympic sport out there right now,” Perlman says. But serious challenges lie ahead, as Israeli cricketing officials struggle to engender the game into the national psyche. Perlman and other officials have over the years assembled around 1,500 Israeli kids who are actively involved in cricket development, but only some 20 percent of those graduate to club level. Despite shortages in funding for youth cricket development, especially in the south, Perlman is confident that 3,000 Israeli kids will be involved in the cricket development program within three years. On the more senior level, Rhodes thinks the national side needs to play more international games than it is now. The last international game Israel played was against Croatia last August, and its next game is at least 18 months away. Israel is an associate [non test-playing] member of the International Cricket Council.

“What we do in South Africa is make sure that enough kids get to hear about the game because then the better ones come through, if there is a system in place to identify them. You need to identify the kids with good coordination and who are fast, and then you need to put them somewhere. If you do manage to find a youngster who wants to play the game, what do you do with him, where does he go? You need to identify youngsters as early as possible, so that they don’t get lost,” Rhodes said. One such youngster is Solomon Varsulkar, a 20-year old left arm spin bowler, who was the first Israeli ever chosen by International Cricket Council Europe as one of the world’s finest young talents, to participate in the 2008 ICC Cricket Academy 2008 in India.

Rhodes even has a novel idea of how to circumvent the problem of young Israeli cricketers giving up the sport once they enter the IDF: an IDF sport academy, which can select and train an army cricket team. Rhodes points out that many countries’ militaries have sports academies and teams, including South Africa, which produced several top players some decades ago, and all of its sports teams, including field hockey and cricket, were considered very prestigious teams. “Not only are you serving your country but you’re also playing sports in an academy that looks after all the sports. The army here is three years, so if a guy does his army service, but is based at the academy, he could be taught to play cricket,” the ever-optimistic Rhodes says.

Regarding the stiff competition that cricket in Israel faces from more popular sports such as basketball and soccer, Rhodes says that ‘the gentleman’s game’ can have a positive influence on the young Israelis’ temperament, especially the lack of patience Rhodes noticed on the streets, where motorists honked at each other at traffic lights even before the light turned green. “The best life lessons I’ve learned have been on the cricket field. Cricket is not fair: you are given out when you’re not out. You prepare, you practice really hard, you set yourself a goal, and you don’t achieve it. That’s what life’s about. You don’t always get what you want. Cricket is a game of patience and discipline. You can’t just walk away if things aren’t going your way. It certainly gives you great life lessons. Basketball is pretty much over in one hour. If you’re having a bad day you can sit on the bench for an hour and then you can go. In cricket you can bat it out, for three hours sometimes, and you can get naught [runs]. You can bat one ball, get out, and you still have to contribute, even though you’re feeling that’s the last thing you want to do. It’s a great leveler,” says Rhodes. Jewish cricketer Adam Bacher, who played several games for South Africa, says there are some parallels between Jewish culture and cricket. “The Jewish religion is a very disciplined one, you’ve got to have extreme discipline [to adhere to the laws], likewise in cricket. The real game is test cricket [over five days] which requires extreme discipline and humility and the ability to bounce back from bad situations – which is a theme of Jewish culture,” Bacher says. Bacher points to the expat community in Israel which numbers several thousands and lives mostly in Ashdod, Lod and Dimona, as the ones most likely to pass on the cricketing tradition and culture to other Israelis. “Kenya is a great example: nobody knew cricket there, but the expat Indians made it a way of life and spread it to the locals. And Kenya did very well in the last World Cup, making it almost to the semi-finals,” Bacher says.

Rhodes, of average height and stocky build, says cricket could be an attractive alternative to kids who feel they don’t want to play soccer or basketball, or who don’t have the physical requirements to excel in those sports. “There are other games for them,” he says. He is also in favor of maximizing Israel’s existing sporting facilities, such as indoor basketball courts, as venues for spreading the game of cricket. In a country as small as Israel, where land for large sports pitches is hard to come by, and the water needed to maintain them becoming increasingly scarce, indoor facilities may be a smart avenue for cricket development in the future. The situation is especially dire in the south, where there are no cricket facilities and no playing grounds that meet the needs of the players there. “If a guy is taking part in a soccer or basketball practice on the one side of the court, and he sees a bunch of guys playing cricket on the other side, he might want to give cricket a try,” Rhodes says, adding that coaching youngsters should not focus on technique, but on playing and enjoying the game. “The West Indians bring their guys [international players] off the beach, same as India and Pakistan. Technique is not the most important thing there, but there are vast amounts of people playing cricket everywhere, and you should play cricket your way.”

Daniel Kuhn contributed to this report