Michael Hussey discusses captaincy styles of MS Dhoni, Michael Clarke, Ricky Ponting and Rohit Sharma

Former Australian batsman Michael Hussey has played under the captaincy of Michael Clarke, Ricky Ponting, MS Dhoni and Rohit Sharma.

Michael Hussey began his career under the captaincy of Ricky Ponting in the Australian national team, stating that Ponting liked to lead from the front and always backed his players to the fullest.

“They are all very different characters. Ricky Ponting was so competitive and led from the front and backed his players 100%. He wanted to win so badly and dragged the whole team along with him,” Michael Hussey said in a podcast called Hostpot.

“As for Michael Clarke, I would say he was very tactical and very good brain on the cricket field, knew when to bowl certain bowlers and things like that,” he added.

Michael Hussey played under MS Dhoni and Rohit Sharma in the IPL

Michael Hussey next spoke about MS Dhoni, with the Australian sharing the Chennai Super Kings dressing room with the latter in the IPL. Michael Hussey said that MS Dhoni reads the game very well while also remaining calm and composed in all situations. He also said that MS Dhoni backs his players and gives them longer ropes.

“MS Dhoni… he has a great intuition for the game but he is also very calm and cool, backs his players enormously and shows a lot of faith in them,” Michael Hussey said.

Michael Hussey also played under Rohit Sharma’s captaincy in the IPL when the Australian turned out for the Mumbai Indians. He explained how MS Dhoni and Rohit’s captaincy traits are quite similar.

“Rohit was much the same. He is very calm under pressure and tactically very sound as well. All of them had this ability to take pressure off players and I think that was a good thing,” Hussey said.

Michael Hussey played 79 Tests, 185 ODIs and 38 T20Is for Australia, scoring 6235, 5442 and 721 runs respectively.