In Love With India

A growing family, an active lifestyle and plenty of travel -- Jonty Rhodes is having the time of his life

- Lara Atson

‘FAMILIES are like cricket teams,” a caption alongside a picture of the family reads. “It’s easy to be happy when you’re winning but when times are tough a team that’s first and foremost happy will stand together and come out as winners.”

And if photos are anything to go by, it’s pretty clear this little band of four is a winning team. One snap taken just after New Year’s Day at a food stall in India shows a barefoot mom and a dad in flipflops both beaming with their cute kids nestled in their arms.

Jonty Rhodes is, of course, the dad in question. Beloved by South Africans for his acrobatic fielding skills in his days as a Protea, he’s bowled over by this vast subcontinent.

He’d been the fielding coach of the Mumbai Indians (MI) in the Indian Premier League (IPL) for nine years when in December he called it a day to focus on personal business.

India’s become a second home to him so it’s little surprise Jonty and his wife, Melanie, named their daughter India.

She was born in Mumbai in 2015 and last year Nathan Jon joined the family. Like his elder sister, he was welcomed into the world via a water birth.

At the time Melanie wrote on Instagram, “@jontyrhodes8 wasn’t present at the birth like we obviously would’ve wanted as Nathan Jon was born in Mumbai one hour before Jonty had to warm the MI team up for the IPL 2017 finals.”

His team ended up lifting the IPL trophy for the third time, just hours after the little boy was born.

But the proud dad was present when Nathan (now eight months) started switching to solids last October. Melanie shared a cute video on Instagram to capture this moment. There’s also an adorable vid of the doting dad cooing to his son as he wriggles in delight on a table.