Former Australia batsman Michael Hussey was one of the biggest match-winners of his time and every captain wanted the 'Mr. Cricket' in their team. During his illustrious career, Hussey played under some of the greats of the game like Ricky Ponting, MS Dhoni, Michael Clarke and Rohit Sharma. Under Ponting and Clarke, he achieved great success with the Australian team in both Tests and ODIs. While he played under Dhoni and Rohit for Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians respectively in IPL.
Hussey elaborated on the captaincy styles of the four successful captains and told how they control the situation.
The veteran Aussie said that Ponting wanted to win badly and dragged the whole team along with him in the process.
“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,” Hussey said in a podcast called Hotspot with Chetan Narula.
Clarke is one of the most underrated captains in world cricket. Under his leadership, Australia won their fifth ODI World Cup in 2015. Hussey feels Clarke knew how to use his bowlers efficiently.
“I would say Michael Clarke was very tactical and very good brain on the cricket field, knew when to bowl certain bowlers and things like that,” Hussey said.
Hussey tasted huge success in IPL under Dhoni and said the former India captain backs his players enormously and shows a lot of faith in them.
“MSD… 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,” the former Aussie batsman said.
On Rohit, Hussey said he is similar to Dhoni and is very calm under pressure and tactically very sound as well.
“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 added.
Ponting and Dhoni are considered two of the greatest captains in the history of the game. Ponting led Australia team to back to back World Cup trophies in 2003 and 2007. While Dhoni is the only captain in world cricket to win all three ICC trophies 2007 T20 World Cup, 2011 ODI WC and 2013 Champions Trophy.
Hussey pointed out the similarities between the two great captains and said they don't change themselves in any situation and remain consistent and calm.
“Whether the team is going really well or going poorly, they are just consistent and calm with their personalities. Ricky, for example, whether he scored a hundred or scored a duck, he was just the same person. MSD, whether won four games in a row or lost four games in a row, he is exactly the same person. I think that is a very good attribute to have from a leadership point of view and it rubs off on everyone else on the team.
“If you have an emotional character as captain who is always going up and down, the team rides those waves with the captain, but if a captain is control and calm, and consistent with his personality, then that really helps the team,” Hussey said.
