Former South Africa captain Faf du Plessis believes Mahendra Singh Dhoni, among others, helped him mature as a leader, adding that the former India skipper is tactically one of the best in the business.

Du Plessis had two long stints with IPL franchise Chennai Super Kings — from 2011-2015 and 2018-2021 — before he moved to Royal Challengers Bangalore as captain last season. The South African said when he realised he was not going to be a leader like former Proteas skipper Graeme Smith or Dhoni, he decided to just be himself.

“I think what was really good for me to go through was the conviction that I am not going to be Graeme Smith as a captain, I’m not going to be Stephen Fleming as a captain, I’m not going to be MS Dhoni as a captain. In order for me to be true to who I am as a person, I need to be me. Because if you’re not being you, then people will see through it, maybe not when you’re doing well but definitely when you are under pressure, or under-performing, the real you will reveal itself,” Du Plessis said in a RCB podcast.

During his debut season with CSK, Du Plessis said, he used to spend a lot of time with former New Zealand captain and Chennai team chief coach Fleming, just picking his brains on captaincy and trying to imbibe the nuances of leadership.

“I always had this leadership perspective of learning from great leaders, it (leadership) was always something that I was fascinated about. When I initially came into the South African team, Graeme Smith was the captain. I was like, wow, this guy’s got an amazing presence when he speaks — like this big, blinding roar at you, and he just dominated the room while speaking. So I was like, that’s a leader, right?,” he said.

“I got an opportunity to go to Chennai (CSK) in a young-ish phase in my career. Fleming is one of the great leaders within the game, obviously, for New Zealand cricket also. The different aspect was him being a man manager, a guy who just works on relationships. And I go, wow, that’s impressive. During my first season at CSK, I was sitting next to him (Fleming) and just asked him questions about captaincy and leadership, just to learn as much as I can. And then you put MS on top of that, and you go, wow, this guy’s tactically odd to read the game like this. And you go, okay, he is impressive as a captain.”

PTI