Michael Hussey, the former Australian cricketer who retired from all forms of cricket in 2013, had the rare privilege of playing under both former Indian and Australian Test Cricket captain MS Dhoni and Ricky Ponting.
When he was asked who was a better skipper among the two, Hussey, aka Mr. Cricket, found it difficult to answer. A brilliant, all-round batsman, the former Aussie player had to field some tough questions with regard to his cricketing career.
During an exclusive interview with ESPNCricinfo exclusively, when asked about the toughest bowler he had ever faced in his entire career, he said Dale Steyn, the recently retired South African fast bowler, was the one who had troubled him the most.
In IPL, Hussey played for CSK played under MS Dhoni, but while playing for Australia, Ricky Ponting was his skipper. When asked who he would rate as a better captain, he chose Ricky Ponting over MS Dhoni in one-day internationals (ODIs).
Mr. Cricket, a legendary batsman himself when asked to select one best batsman in each format whom he loves watching the most. For Tests, he picked Brian Lara while Michael Bevan and AB de Villiers were his favorites in ODIs and T20s, respectively.
Having had the opportunity to play in both the Indian Premier League and the Big Bash League, rated as the two most competitive T20 cricket leagues, he, however, felt that IPL was the tougher competition among the two.
Although the cricketing world has witnessed many great bowlers, he said he would like to see the legendary off-spinner, Muttiah Muralitharan, to play international cricket for his country. Muralitharan has to his credit more than 1,300 international scalps in his long career for Sri Lanka.
In his career, Michael Edward Killeen Hussey featured in 79 Tests and 185 ODIs for Australia and amassed more than 10,000 runs. When he played international cricket, he was a purist’s delight with his solid batting technique.
