South African T20 captain Faf du Plessis has labelled India’s limited-overs captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni a "quiet leader" and also said that playing under him in the IPL has made him a better captain.
Du Plessis, who was ruled out of the tournament after sustaining an injury was all praises for his IPL captain. He was included in the Dhoni-led Chennai Super Kings squad in 2011 and had a successful stint with the team until 2015. The new Rising Pune Supergiants franchise bought him in the 2016 auctions after CSK was banned, where he again played under the captaincy of the wicket-keeper batsman.
"I have been very fortunate to play under MS, which has also helped me as a captain. I found that there is a lot to learn as a young captain from the combination of Fleming and Dhoni. When I started at Chennai, I was still a young captain. I suppose you could see what is working for them and try and implement that in your own style,” Du Plessis said speaking in an interview with Firstpost.
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He lauded Dhoni and said that he always tries to extract the best out of the team. "Dhoni is the guy who can get the best out of an inexperienced player, one who is yet to do well. We have seen that in the past, there have been a lot of guys who have reached the top under his leadership. In terms of him as a personality or as a captain, he is actually very quiet, a very quiet leader.”
On being asked if the plan for the new team was to replicate what Dhoni and Fleming had done for CSK, Faf emphatically said yes.
"I think it was a case of trying to copy pasting a successful recipe. I know one thing Fleming and Dhoni believe in is consistency in team selection, and that is obviously something that they still try and do. But it felt pretty much exactly the same. But the rest, you spend so much time building a successful brand it will be stupid to try and fix it," he said.
He also added that the challenge for the current team is that it is not the same side Dhoni's CSK had until 2015, where they knew what their best team was.
Faf, who has taken over as the skipper of the Caribbean Premier League team St. Kitts and Navis Patriots, said that he sees the opportunity as a huge learning curve for his captaincy, adding that he is excited to play in a completely different environment.
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