The big challenge of captaincy is outside the field.One has just become a former captain of his country. Another got a new responsibility. In the discussions between Faf du Plessis and Tamim Iqbal, it is natural for leadership to come. Du Plessis finds many off-field issues very challenging with on-field cricket as a captain. He also thinks that a lot of energy has been spent on this in the end.
Du Plessis led South Africa in 115 matches between 2012 and 2020 in three formats. This year, he has given up the responsibility of all formats one by one. Du Plessis came to Tamim Iqbal’s Facebook live show in the midst of the lockdown of the Covid-19 epidemic, where he spoke about leadership.
As a challenge to captaincy, he said, “I think the changes. When I first captained, the biggest thing was to tell the seniors know what I was going to do. I was definitely the captain, so it was a matter of my side as well. There was a leadership group of senior cricketers.”
“Then in the last few years, a lot has started to come to me, not just on field cricket. There was a lot to do off the field, this-that and that. That was the biggest challenge as a captain. I had to spend a lot of energy off the field. Bringing a good atmosphere to the team, I as a captain put the most emphasis on personality. Like- how I treat them, what the team environment is like. I would literally ask how they felt about talking to me openly. All this is a big deal to me. As long as I could do it, there was no problem. But last year a lot of energy was spent, even from that.”
Du Plessis, who took over from AB de Villiers, has won 70 matches for South Africa. He also learned a lot from MS Dhoni and Steven Fleming while playing for Chennai Super Kings in the IPL in the beginning, “I was very lucky to be able to start at CSK. I have learned a lot from MS, especially in leadership. I believe, learning from others, and then coming up with a process of your own. As a result, no one has to copy.
“For the first two years, I tried to learn from Steven Fleming and MS Dhoni. I was surprised because Dhoni is different. As we knew, the captain always had to speak in team meetings, to lead. But Dhoni is different, he did not always speak in team meetings. His cricketing brain is awesome. He relied on his ‘gut feeling’.He knows when to keep quiet, when to attack.”
Du Plessis also told Tamim that he wants to play in Bangladesh Premier League and BPL in future.
News Room, May 14,2020