Career
Ontong originally came to England from South Africa to pursue a football career and had trials with Chelsea in the early 1970s. He didn"t impress enough to join their books, instead turning to cricket, as he had been having success as a club cricketer in London. The South African earned a place on the Master Control Console groundstaff and coach Len Muncer later recommended him to Glamorgan, Muncer"s former county.
Ontong made his Glamorgan debut against the touring Australian team at Swansea in 1975.
From 1977 he was a regular in the Glamorgan side and would return to South Africa at the conclusion of each English summer to play more first-class cricket. Early in his career he was a right-arm fast-medium pace bowler but in 1983 he took up off-spin for the first time and it became his preferred craft.
Around the same time Ontong moved from the middle and lower order to the number three position. Following Mike Selvey"s sudden retirement halfway into the 1984 season, Ontong became captain of Glamorgan and he finished the summer with a career best 74 wickets.
In a match against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge he took figures of 5/39 and 8/67 as well as scoring 130.
As Ontong had met the qualifying requirements to represent England in international cricket, he was said to have been close to being picked as the country"s Test all-rounder and was also in consideration for a spot in their 1987 World Cup squad. In August 1988, Ontong was badly injured in a car accident when he was travelling from Essex to Northamptonshire. The damage to his knee ended his career at Glamorgan although in the early 1990s he appeared in some matches for Northern Transvaal, a team he would go on to coach.
He has also served as the Director of Coaching at Gauteng.
Rodney Ontong is not related to South African Test cricketer Justin Ontong.