Captains’ Captain: Dhoni Mushfiq’s ideal leader
In the third part of the ‘Captain's Captain’ series, Mushfiqur Rahim spoke to The Business Standard (TBS) about his favourite leader.
2011 to 2017- Mushfiqur Rahim's tenure as captain. This period was a very significant learning experience for the veteran cricketer. He has since become more mature not only as a cricketer but also as a human being. But according to Mushfiqur, losing the captaincy was a big wake-up call for him.
The wicketkeeper-batsman has realised that it is not always appropriate to be vocal about everything. Mushfiqur believes that he would have been the captain for a longer period if he had learned to pretend.
Mushfiqur was relieved of ODI captaincy in 2014 and Test captaincy in 2017. In these seven years of captaincy, he tried to follow the likes of Ricky Ponting, MS Dhoni and Stephen Fleming.
Mushfiqur said he would have emulated his heroes more but he did not have the resources the likes of Ricky Ponting had. That's why, despite willing to be aggressive, he had to follow defensive strategies most of the time.
In the third part of the 'Captain's Captain' series, Mushfiqur Rahim spoke to The Business Standard (TBS) about his favourite leader.
In Mushfiq's words
Before I talk about my favourite captain and whom I followed while captaining, I would like to say a few things. Everyone has his own philosophy and instincts as a player and as a captain. Some like to follow different strategies, others like to do what their gut feeling says.
As a captain, you need resources. You have to have players with whom you can be aggressive or play gambles at times. I was unlucky not to have the resources a captain needs to go on all-out attack.
I did not have the luxury to attack the opposition all the time. If you don't have the troops and weapons to attack, it will lead to your downfall if you do so. That was a prime reason why I had to be defensive most of the time.
I did not have players other than Shakib (Al Hasan) and Mashrafe (Mortaza) who were extraordinary. With such a team, attacking would not have helped. Moreover, Mashrafe bhai didn't play Tests. So I had only Shakib. Opponents knew very well that they only needed to respect Shakib and then go all guns blazing against others.
The captains who took over from me had that luxury. Because they had genuine talents like Mustafizur (Rahman), (Mehidy Hasan) Miraz, Taijul (Islam) coming in. Rubel (Hossain) became more experienced along with Al-Amin (Hossain) and Shafiul (Islam). Then Taskin (Ahmed) came in. For the last four-five years, they have been delivering the goods.
I don't have a captain whom I particularly idolised. I liked the way Stephen Fleming used to go about things. I liked the way Ricky Ponting used to attack. But if you ask Ponting to captain Bangladesh, he won't be able to attack. That's because he won't be enjoying the services of the likes of Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne. He won't be having a fast bowler like Brett Lee either.
MS Dhoni had world class bowlers like Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma, Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan Singh. The way you lead a cricket team depends big time on how good your resources are.
I really admire the way Dhoni goes about his business. If you make a list of the greatest captains in cricket, he will be right up there. His sixth sense is incredible. He can sense what is going to happen. He has led India to successes. India won each and every ICC tournament under his leadership. I think all the captains in the world should idolise him.
I wanted to lead and attack like Fleming, Ponting and Dhoni did. I wanted to lead from the front and lead by example like them. We did not have quality players like India, New Zealand, Australia have.
You may ask how Mashrafe bhai managed to do so. I always say that he is way better than me. His game sense, on and off the field, is better than me. He had some match winners to make his job easier as well. He utilized them very well which I couldn't.