What if Jonty Rhodes had not run out Inzamam-ul-Haq in the 1992 World Cup?

#2 Teams from the sub-continent would still have been poor fielding sides

The current Indian team is brilliant on the field

India had been an average fielding side until the early 90s in limited overs cricket. There were some great fielders like Azharuddin, Maninder Singh and Sivaramakrishnan but overall, as a unit, they were far from being among the best in the world, weren’t they? Same was the case with Pakistan and Sri Lanka, but this changed in a big way after this run-out by Jonty Rhodes.

It was alongside Rhode’s run-out in the 1992 World Cup that India saw the emergence of one of its finest fielders, Ajay Jadeja. By the mid to the end 90s, the emergence of better fielders who weren’t afraid to throw themselves around on the ground to stop extra runs, like Robin Singh, and later around the turn of the century, Yuvraj Singh and Mohammad Kaif.

Taking catches in the inner circle, courtesy acrobatic dives was something Indian fans were not used to seeing from their fielders.

We’ve seen Mohammad Kaif and even Suresh Raina running batsmen out in exactly the same way as the South African had done to Inzamam, by flinging themselves towards the stumps instead of throwing the ball and risking missing them.

This huge change in the mindset towards fielding of the youngsters from the sub-continent would never have happened if Rhodes hadn’t run Inzamam out that night.