Proteas stalwart Faf du Plessis has shared his experience of working alongside legendary wicketkeeper-batter MS Dhoni at Chennai Super Kings in the IPL, describing the former India captain’s in-match instinct as a quality he is keen to bring into his own leadership.
Du Plessis, who accumulated 4,773 runs across 154 IPL appearances, had two stints with the Chennai-based franchise spanning nine seasons before joining Royal Challengers Bengaluru as captain in 2022. During that period, he won three IPL titles and observed Dhoni’s methods at close quarters.
Reflecting on what set Dhoni apart, Du Plessis spoke on the Prakhar Gupta Podcast and explained that the CSK icon rarely leaned on pre-match blueprints, preferring instead to trust his reading of situations as they unfolded in the middle. Du Plessis said:
“This guy has an incredible understanding of the game on the field. He doesn’t like to plan too much beforehand and prefers to be instinctive during the match. That was his superpower. He would read the game and the players while staying remarkably calm, as everyone knows he is a very composed person. That’s something I want to take from him and apply to my own captaincy,” said Du Plessis in the aforementioned source.
When Steven Smith faced intense public scrutiny following the ball-tampering scandal at the Cape Town Test on March 24, 2018, support came from an unexpected quarter. Faf du Plessis, the South African captain whose team was competing against Australia in that series, recalled the moment Smith addressed the media after play that day.
Speaking in a video series called Cricketers Cricketers on Cricinfo, du Plessis reflected on his empathy for Smith’s situation. The South African captain had himself faced ball-tampering charges in Hobart during 2016, when he altered the ball’s condition using residue from a sweet. Du Plessis understood the weight of such accusations and the media storm that followed.
“Smith came out at the end of the day in Cape Town in 2018 saying: ‘I take responsibility.’ And we were like: ‘Why are you taking responsibility? You did nothing wrong,” Du Plessis recalled in the aforementioned source.
The Australian captain’s willingness to accept blame struck du Plessis as unusual, given that Smith had not personally carried out the tampering. The parallel between his own experience and Smith’s predicament moved him to act.
“Everything just exploded in terms of the media and how he was being put under pressure. Straight away, I was like: this is not his doing. This is the same thing as my ball-tampering charge,” Du Plessis added.
