Michael Hussey is one of those rare cricketers who has had the opportunity to play under two of the greatest captains the game has seen – Ricky Ponting and Mahendra Singh Dhoni.
After tasting immense success with Ponting and the Australian team, Hussey played with Dhoni in the Indian Premier League and had an impressive stint with the Chennai Super Kings.
In a recent interview on Raunak Kapoor’s YouTube channel, Hussey reflected on the differences and similarities between Ponting and Dhoni’s captaincy styles.
The 44 said what’s most common between Ponting and Dhoni is their ability to lead from the front and back their players to the hilt.
“Ricky is just so driven and so competitive in everything that he does,” said Hussey. “He can be playing table tennis in the team room or he can be playing a game of marbles and Ricky would want to win. You’ll do a fielding drill at training and he wants to lead. He wants to set the highest standard.
“If we had the worst nets in the world that we have to practice on, he will be the first one into the net and show that it’s okay. He really leads from the front and he certainly backs his players 100%. That’s probably where the similarity is with MS.”
Hussey said he thinks Dhoni is a better tactician than Ponting and that he admires the former India skipper’s ability to handle pressure.
“MS is a lot calmer. A lot more measured. And I would say he strategically reads the game slightly better than Ricky. Ricky was a good tactician as well. Fantastic, but the way MS makes some moves out there in the field, I’ll be sort of thinking “where’s he going with this?” Inevitably it might work. How did this come from? He just backs his gut feel. Two different captains but both very effective in their own ways,” said Husssey.
“I think one of the greatest strengths about MS, particularly in a place like India, is his great ability to take the pressure off players, particularly young Indian players. In India,you know what it’s like. It’s a religion over there. Everyone wants it so much, so badly. He just says it’s just a game, just go out there and play. Enjoy. Some days you win, some days you lose. It’s not the be-all-end-all. That’s quite rare I think for a captain, particularly in India,” added Hussey.
Watch Hussey’s interview here: