Michael Hussey Explores The Captaincy Styles Of Four Skippers That He Played Under

Former Australian batsman has had the privilege to play under a host of captains during his professional playing career. While Michael Hussey started his international career late due to Australia’s star-studded line-up, he made the most of his opportunities. Having played under Michael Clarke, Ricky Ponting, MS Dhoni, and Rohit Sharma, the southpaw has described their captaincy styles.

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Michael Hussey began his career under the captaincy of Ricky Ponting, who led the One-day team from 2002-2011 and the Test team from 2004-2011, The Western Australian underlined that Ponting always liked to lead from the front and backed his players to the maximum while dragging the players along with him to win.

“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 podcacst called Hostpot with Chetan Narula.

The veteran highlighted Michael Clarke’s traits, mentioning that he was a shrewd tactician and knew which bowlers to attack with according to the situation. Clarke succeeded Ponting in the captaincy role and ushered Australia to their latest World Cup win in 2015, featuring in 115 Tests, 245 ODIs, and 34 T20Is from 2004 to 2015.

“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,” he added.

He has a great intuition for the game: Michael Hussey

The 45-year-old, who played six seasons in the IPL under MS Dhoni, has not fallen short of praising the former Indian captain in recent times. The Australian conceded that Dhoni boasts of an excellent reading of the game while remaining calm and composed through adversities. At the same time, he backs players when needed and shows enough trust 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,” Hussey stated

The 79-Test veteran stated that Rohit Sharma also possesses the same traits as Dhoni does, bringing in good tactics to the game. He believes that all of the players mentioned above had the knack of lifting the team and reduce the pressure off them.

“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,” he maintained.

I think that is a very good attribute to have from a leadership point of view: Hussey

Michael Hussey cited the example of Ponting and Dhoni, who remained the same whether or not the personal performances or the team’s go their way. The retired batsman feels that is an enormously helpful attitude as captain since the teammates also imbibe the same from them.

“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,” Hussey said further.

The 45-year-old underlined that if the side has a captain, who is very expressive and reactive, the same ebbs and flows with the team. On the other hand, a calm and composed customer himself helps to calm the nerves of his players as well.

“If you have an emotional character as a 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,” he concluded.

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