Dhoni an impressive captain and one of the best tacticians: Faf du Plessis

Du Plessis had two long stints with IPL side Chennai Super Kings — 2011-2015 and 2018-2021 — before he moved to Royal Challengers Bangalore as captain last season

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 side Chennai Super Kings — 2011-2015 and 2018-2021 — before he moved to Royal Challengers Bangalore as captain last season.

Du Plessis 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 (during his career) 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.

Du Plessis said during his debut season with CSK, he used to spend a lot of time with former New Zealand captain and Chennai team chief coach Stephen 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.